


breaking all the rules (EDITING IN PROGRESS)

by ilvermoron



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Metahumans, Multi, Superheroes, The Flash - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-10-27 02:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 58,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10799688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilvermoron/pseuds/ilvermoron
Summary: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and to every bearer of victory there's a chooser of the slain.





	1. run devil run

Barry Allen was pretty used to getting his ass handed to him. The Flash, on the other hand, was not.

_“Get down!” He shouted, and all twenty civilians in the museum took cover. Well, all except a little girl in green who stood, solitary, beside a painting of a bowl of fruit. Her eyes were a gleaming brown, messy curls sticking out of her ponytails. Far too young to be seeing the violence of a robbery. The men in a group, masks covering their faces, hadn’t seen her yet. Barry dashed to her and tucked her behind a pillar with a woman who resembled her in a dozen ways. When he turned back, he saw the person in the hoodie._

Miss Caitlin Snow didn’t enjoy having to patch up either of them.

“I told you to be careful!” She scolded him, attempting to clean up the rapidly healing cuts on their resident metahuman.

Barry winced as she dabbed disinfectant into an especially deep wound. “I told you, he was really good. I even tried to speed away from him, and he managed to clothesline me.” He rubbed his neck where the rope had choked him. “Really hurt, actually.”

_The hoodie was a deep indigo, the color of the darkest patch of sky in Starry Night. Black biker gloves covered his hands. But it wasn’t the hood or the gloves that made him slow down to a normal pace- it was the fact that this man had somehow managed to hurdle up and around the first armed assailant, and, in midair, had him in a headlock. Barry was faster, of course. He had all of the guys ziptied- there was a stash in the hoodie’s pocket- and immobile in moments. He paused for a real-time second to admire his work. That’s where he went wrong._

“But… how did you let him get away?” Cisco asked, checking Barry’s vitals on the tablet. “This guy may be a ninja, but he’s not as fast as you.” When Barry stayed silent, he hesitated. “Is he?”

_The man in blue didn’t seem too pleased to have been literally beaten to the punch, since Barry was met with a hard elbow to the face as soon as he turned around. Stunned, he fell back on a column. And then he tried to run- but the hooded man had pulled out a rope, one that took Barry across the neck. With his extra speed, it tore it from his hands, but the damage was done. He coughed and stumbled to his knees, time returning to a normal speed. “No one asked for your help,” the vigilante grunted. He stepped forward and knelt, uncomfortably close to Barry now. “Know your limits, Lightning McQueen.”_

“No,” Barry muttered. “He just… distracted me.”

“Distracted you how?” Caitlin demanded.

_He kissed him. One second he was being threatened, the next the vigilante in the blue hood was kissing him like they were lovers and not rivals. He didn’t want to admit to it, but his already racing heart sped to a dead sprint. A guy was kissing him oh god a guy was actually kissing him and holy shit holy shit were those teeth scraping his lower lip oh god oh-_

“Barry.”

He snapped out of it, raising a hand to brush his thumb across his lip. “Uh- well. It was weird. Just kind of… happened.... Can we stop talking about it now?”

“No, we can’t,” Caitlin insisted, at the same time Cisco said, “Sure, whatever.”

The two looked at each other in surprise. Then, Caitlin’s expression morphed into a scowl. “Well, unless it’s essential to Caitlin doing her thing,” Cisco amended. Caitlin seemed appeased.

The telltale sound of electric wheels accompanied Dr. Wells into the medical room. “Distractions are dangerous, Barry,” he cautioned.

“I know,” Barry muttered. The feeling of the hooded man’s lips on his still lingered. “It won’t happen again.”

He wasn’t going to think about how much he wished it would.


	2. blueblood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> also known as: i've literally never done anything to you stop kicking my ass

Barry had been in the middle of dinner when he got the call. The whole superhero job didn’t exactly have a typical schedule. He was on the clock 24/7. Even in the middle of dinner, much to his chagrin.

“Duty calls?” Joe asked, already knowing the answer.

Barry was already out the door when Joe said, “Be careful.”

Bank robbery on Highland Boulevard. Three gunmen, armed to the teeth and motivated with the human hunger to get rich quick. Barry wondered, for a moment, if they knew that the serial numbers of the stolen money would set off alarms wherever they were used.

He stopped in the center of the bank and decided they didn’t, because one of the guys actually had on a green beanie that said CA$H IT IN across the forehead. Not his wisest wardrobe choice.

“Drop the money!” He shouted, pretending his voice didn’t sound like that of an agitated twelve-year-old.

Two of the men whirled and fired, but Barry was long gone. He tore the gun out of the hand of one and smacked a second over the head with it, real time grabbing hold of all of them. The first came at him again, tackling him like a football player- exactly like a football player, actually: that would help ID him if necessary- and Barry went down.

_ There’s another one _ , he thought as he tried to find the wiggle room to dash away.  _ A third. He could be preparing to decorate the floor with my blood this second. Three gunmen, three guns. _

He would have continued worrying about the third gunman if the weight pressing down on his chest, the full force of the largest intruder, hadn’t sent stars spinning across his field of vision. That was definitely a few broken ribs.

Just as the football-playing-gunman raised a fist to bash Barry’s face in, he found himself being knocked to the ground with enough force to give him a concussion. On top of him was an indigo-hooded figure who rapidly kneed the gunman in the knackers. As he laid whining, the blue man leaned over to say something in the menace’s ear.

“Sorry, sonny,” Barry’s savior growled. “He’s mine.”

Then, so quickly that Barry had to doubt if he was speedy too, the man seized the gunman’s left arm, placed his knee just above the elbow joint, and began to apply pressure as the gunman whined like a little girl. “I think you should wait quietly for the cops, don’t you?”

Barry knew he should go, but he was frozen in place at the sight of the azure hood over the savior’s head. It was him again.

“Barry, are you okay?” Caitlin asked in his comms.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he took a step towards the blue man.

He was fast. Very, very fast. At the moment Barry dared to move, he had whirled on him and slammed his fist into his face. Colors danced behind Barry’s eyes as he stumbled, and the blue man took that opportunity to knock him to the ground like he weighed nothing. 

Barry blinked up at his savior-turned-enemy. “Who are you?”

But no more punches accompanied the fall, and Barry continued looking up at the masked face as the blue man turned away and kicked the gun out of the hand of one of the cronies who was coming towards them both. H e made a sound that sounded like dry laughter. “You ever realize that ‘the Streak’ makes you sound like you leave skid marks in your boxers?”

“No, it’s--” he started to reply, getting to his feet, but as soon as he had managed to stand, the final thug threw another of his signature fast punches. Although the blue man was quick enough to duck, the punch hit Barry's unbruised eye.  Now both Barry’s eyes felt sore and swollen. The blue man completed the job, decking the last baddie, and Barry didn't realize he'd fallen until he looked up and saw the blue man kneeling beside him.

"Ow," Barry grumbled.

The blue man seemed satisfied and stood, allowing Barry to breathe normally again.

“What do you want?” Barry asked, this time sounding fantastically prepubescent.

The blue man chuckled. “Not to destroy Central City, for sure. I’m on your side.”

Barry scrambled to his feet, itching to run, but he had one more question, and before he was the Flash he was a scientist. “Then why did you hit me?” He demanded of the other.

The blue man held his arms out in a ‘what can you do’ gesture. “Eye for an eye. Or, two black eyes for one. See you around,” he promised, then turned to leave just as red, white, and blue lights flashed through the bank.

For the second time, Barry didn’t follow him. Instead, he turned to run the opposite way, but tripped over the body of the third gunman. The blue man must have gotten him while Barry was preoccupied with the first two. Zipties bound his wrists together in place of handcuffs- that was a surprisingly clever idea, actually- and he bore a blooming bruise on one cheekbone that was definitely going to look great in his mugshot.  Both his eyes were obviously blackened by the time Barry got back to S.T.A.R. labs a few seconds later. Caitlin, predictably, freaked.

“How did he hit you again?” She demanded. “I told you, you have to learn to actually defend yourself. Speed is not a cure-all defense.” In typical Caitlin fashion, she hovered over him even though his injuries weren't even near fatal, and she’d already treated them. Who needed a mom when they had Caitlin Snow?

“Yeah, I figured that out,” he grunted, holding ice packs over his eyes.

“So did he, apparently,” Cisco added. His voice was bubbling with excitement the same way it did when he named another metahuman. “He’s gotten you twice now. Whatever he’s doing, he’s pretty great at it.”

Barry removed an ice pack to shoot Cisco a one-eyed glare.

“I mean… He’s pretty evil,” he amended.

“‘Evil’ doesn’t explain why the fastest man alive couldn’t get away,” Caitlin persisted, and Barry was very grateful for the ice packs covering the majority of his flushed face. _Don’t think of kissing the blue man._ It had always been a fact of his life that boys liked girls. And he did like girls. He had always liked girls. So why was he sort of wishing the blue man would kiss him again? 

He shrugged like he wasn’t on the edge of a mental breakdown. “He fights really well. He knows I’m fast and he uses it against me.”

“How could he use it against you?” Caitlin asked. He heard her tapping on her tablet, probably researching other encounters with the blue man. She wouldn’t find anything; Barry had already looked. Whoever he was, the blue man was much better at concealing his identity than Barry was. “You could just… run away,” she mumbled, mostly to herself. 

Barry lifted his chin to show her the bruises from the last encounter, which was completely ineffective due to his super-healing and only resulted in both ice packs sliding off his face.

He’d made his point, though. “Okay, so he’s strong, smart and sassy. I like him,” Cisco announced, then remembered Barry’s state and backed off. “Well, if he wasn’t evil.”

“He’s not evil,” Barry interjected. “He told me so. He just said by hitting me he was getting even.”

Cisco laughed. “If this is getting even, you better not piss him off.”

“Cisco!” Caitlin and Barry said in unison, and he held up his hands in surrender and backed out of the medical room. 

The room was quiet for a few moments, just Caitlin and Barry and the clicking of machines. Caitlin pulled the ice packs off, but Barry kept his eyes closed. “You can open your eyes, he didn’t hit you that hard,” she said quietly. 

He cracked his eyes open, already feeling the pain recede. “What?”

“Something else happened out there. Something you’re not telling us.”

Of course Caitlin could tell. 

“It’s-”

“Say ‘nothing’ and I give you a black eye myself.”

He laughed, the dull ache in his face gently pulsing with his heartbeat. “Okay. But you can’t freak out.”

Caitlin smiled softly at getting her way. “I’ll only freak out if it’s very worth freaking out about, I promise.”

Barry told her everything. Caitlin decided it was worth freaking out about.


	3. full circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> also known as: almost too gay to function

The next time he met the blue man, they fought together.

It was a gang war, around two weeks after the initial encounter, and the pair of them had too many common enemies to waste time fighting each other. Barry received more than a few injuries when he got distracted by the fluid way the blue man fought.

“Man, that was awesome!” Barry marveled. He kept trying to convince himself that the blue man was his enemy and deserved to be hated, but then he did something like a flying side kick and he couldn’t manage to keep it together. He flew through space like gravity didn’t act on him, and Barry knew it did. The blue man wasn’t even a metahuman, and he still kicked ass. Barry started to turn back to him. “You should really do that more oft-”

A leather-clad fist collided with his jaw and he stumbled away, then proceeded to run towards the blue man. Wow, he really should’ve seen that coming.

Just like the blue man should’ve seen Barry’s tackle coming.

This wasn’t about dashing away like usual. This was about winning battles adding up to a greater war, asserting dominance over each other in a never-ending rivalry. Barry knew he could run. He just... didn’t particularly want to.

Time slowed when the duo struck the ground, and it hurt more than Barry wanted to admit. He managed to pin the blue man before he got his bearings again.  On his back, the hood loosened up around his face enough for Barry to finally get a full look at his opponent. Unfortunately, he wore a white ski mask, but through it Barry could see a pair of dark eyes and a hint of olive skin around them. Those two dark eyes flared back at him, taunting him. He knew what Barry was thinking.  _ How could he know?  _ The blue man grinned, the smile only visible through the movement of the mask. “You better be enjoying this, kid,” he said in that strange velvety voice. The smile grew until it nearly overtook the fury in his eyes. “Because this is the only time you’re going to be on top.”

Even if Barry hadn’t gotten distracted by the sex joke, and then distracted again by the thought of sex, the blue man would have beaten him. With an surge of strength, he rammed his head forward, directly into Barry’s nose, and stars exploded before his eyes with the wave of pain. Blood had probably already begun gushing from his nose. The blue man pushed his arms forward, forcing Barry off him and giving him the space to flip them both. He wedged his knee between the speedster’s legs and pried himself free.

Barry was only just regaining a grip on time a few seconds later. His nose was throbbing with pain. Before he walked away with another victory, the blue man smirked down at Barry. “Nothing personal, Streak. Just remember you’re not untouchable. You’ll develop a nasty little case of hubris if you don’t.”

This time, calling the team ‘frustrated’ didn’t cover it.

“Why didn’t you just leave?” Caitlin demanded, applying another bandage to his broken nose with excessive force. He began to cry out when she pressed down, but at the sight of her glare he silenced it. “I know what it’s like out there… for you…”

Caitlin was a great doctor and an awful liar.

“-but you have to know when to give up and come home!” She stopped pressing on his nose and stalked off, probably to find another tool that would ultimately help him but could drive her point home at the same time. He watched the shine of her auburn hair under the fluorescent lights, almost as hypnotic as the blue man’s eyes-

_ No, Barry. _

“I couldn’t just run away!” He said again. He had been trying to explain to them that he wasn’t about to abandon his fight with the blue man for fear of a broken nose, but the only part they heard was ‘broken nose’.

“You went to rescue hostages and got out in one piece,” Dr. Wells began. His tone was even, but rage boiled just beneath the surface. He seemed untouched by the fury, but his eyes told a different story. Barry was sure that if he could walk, he’d be teaching him a hell of a lesson. “But you picked a fight with a powerful vigilante and got hurt.”

“I didn’t pick a fight with him-”

“I don’t care who started it, I’m finishing it!” Wells bellowed. He wheeled closer, strangely menacing for a man in a wheelchair. His eyes were like ice. “You got distracted. That man did this to you is not worth your time,” he spat.

Barry tried to match Wells’ intensity, but it was difficult with plaster slapped on the middle of his face. “Your time, maybe. I’m the one who goes out there. I choose my battles, remember?”

Wells smiled slowly, and Barry felt uncomfortably like he was a pawn in one of Dr. Wells’ chess games. 

“Well, if you didn’t see his face, I can’t track him down.” Cisco seemed a bit disappointed by that. “Looks like he knows to wear a mask, too.”

‘It’s okay, Cisco,” Wells said. He glanced up at Barry before meeting the young technician’s gaze again. “We’re not hunting the blue man anymore. Are we, Barry?”

No one spoke, and silence fell once again.

Four times the two of them had met. Four times the two of them had saved lives. Four times the blue man made the Flash look like a four-year-old fighting with a foam sword.

It was a fact of their rivalry that in terms of raw power, the blue man had the Flash beat, no contest. Speed barely stood a chance against a well-trained artist like the blue man.  Every time Barry returned to the lab, he asked Cisco and Caitlin if there had been any sign of the blue man. When he went out, he was looking for him. He didn’t always talk about it, but they knew. Even Joe had eyes out for a man fitting the description to try and put his adopted son out of his misery.

The efforts were unnecessary. The next time a criminal who dared to challenge the angel of Central City-- at a different art museum, no less, just like the first time-- made their move, Barry was waiting for his ally. The fighters trailing the main were expertly trained, almost how Oliver had described his Mirakuru soldiers. When they caught sight of the scarlet blur and began to march forward, he barely had a chance to flinch before someone appeared beside him.

The hood was down, as if the blue man had only just put his jacket on; the white ski mask was in the process of being pulled on. “Do you enjoy getting beat up or something?” He grunted, sounding strangely congested. Even vigilantes got allergies, Barry supposed.

The first of the four criminals lunged towards the blue man, mistakenly assuming that the smaller of the pair was the weaker. The blue man ducked under his arm and side-kicked him in the ribs. The guy let out a huff of air from the impact, the stinking cloud of it wafting towards Barry as he took on a second goon.

And the fight went on in the fashion of a dance, with the blue man leading and Barry trailing behind as best he could. Because Barry was quick on his feet, he usually could hold his own; but his ally was a fighter by nature.

Yes, a fighter, but not invincible, as was exemplified when one of the hulking criminals snatched up the hood of his jacket and yanked him backwards. He hit the wall so hard that it looked worthy of a concussion, but he hardly hesitated before darting away. The huge man followed, not quite as nimbly, but well enough to keep the blue man on his toes.  Barry went on throwing speed punches, but made sure the blue man stayed on his feet. His fighting was somewhat slowed by the head trauma, reaction times lagging a bit, but the ski mask hid his features and prevented Barry from seeing if there was any painful damage.

“Hey, Bolt!” He shouted to Barry before dashing across the room behind him and taking on the first assailant they’d defeated. He’d been within inches of putting a gun to the back of Barry’s head.  Barry moved away, unwittingly allowing the blue man to stumble; he’d reached back, assuming his ally hadn’t departed from his previous position. He stepped on his own foot and nearly tripped.

That infinitesimal mistake was all their opponent needed. 

“No--” Barry shouted instinctively.

The criminal pushed the gun up into the stomach of the blue man and pulled the trigger.

The shot echoed so loudly, it made the ensuing silence seem ever more fatal.

Barry’s hesitation lasted only moments, realizing the blue man hadn’t finished his work. He picked up where his injured friend left off, and was lucky; the assailant was concealing his exhaustion that had been wrought on him by the blue man. Six speed punches and the tackle that Barry had learned from the blue man landed him on the ground again.

For a moment, Barry paused to admire his work, the world returning to a normal speed around him. That was interrupted by the (miraculously still vitriolic) voice of the downed blue man taunting, “Well, you sure showed him.”

He whirled on his heel, horror pooling in his gut at the sight before him. The midnight-blue hoodie was becoming completely soaked with blood, the white ski mask being stained crimson around the mouth. The blue man’s typically focused eyes were becoming glazed over, betraying his acidic tone of voice.

Barry dropped to the ground beside him, suddenly blanking in the face of an actual living person in need of help. His usual subjects had already died. Trying to prevent death was a whole new ball game.  “You’re gonna be okay,” he tried to assure him.

The dark eyes refocused on Barry. “If I don’t bleed out first, jackass.” After a rattling intake of breath, he concluded, "I think the bullet's nicked a lung. Snapped a rib, easily."  The words would have been a little more weighted if they hadn’t blurred together, revealing just how hurt the blue man truly was.

Barry had no choice but to call for backup. Reluctantly, he lifted his hand to his comms unit and called in. “Guys, I’m with the blue man--”

Caitlin and Cisco jumped on the comms at the same time, overlapping as they asked their questions. Wells finally understood why Barry’s obsession with the vigilante hadn’t died- his two interns had been fueling the fire since the beginning.

“What’s he doing?”

“Don’t let him kick your-”

“Is it the same man?”

“How is he there?”

“He’s hurt,” Barry replied, worry filling his voice like it was drowning him. He couldn’t die, Barry still had so many questions. He unzipped the hoodie, but the black tank top underneath only obscured the true nature of the wound further. “He’s hurt really bad.”

Caitlin piped up, “The nearest hospital is-”

“I can’t take him to a hospital, they’ll arrest him!” Barry protested, feeling for a pulse. Weak, erratic, but present. He didn’t have a choice; he began to gather his powerful acquaintance into his arms. There was only one place that could save him.  And he had stopped talking. With one glance at his eyes, Barry saw that they were closed, and there were no alternatives.

“He’s a public menace, he deserves-” Wells began to explain, only to be interrupted when Barry whooshed through the door, straight into the medical room.

“Caitlin!” He cried, laying out the blue man’s body on the cot. He looked much more vulnerable like this, rather than when he was pounding his fist into a baddie’s gut.

She ran into the room and began giving orders. Cisco buzzed around, fetching her 100 cc’s of some chemical and two handfuls of gauze.

“Is he going to be okay?” Barry asked, sounding much more worried than he should have been for a guy who’d made his face look like an impressionist painting a month ago.

Caitlin didn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know. Give me time. Cisco, Barry, get out.”

An hour later, time that had been filled with anxiety and waiting (which Barry was not at all used to), Caitlin reappeared in the break room. It was out of use, nearly decrepit, but all the other rooms they typically lived in were in plain view of the doctor and patient, and Caitlin insisted on solitude.

When she stepped inside, she was bombarded with questions, all of which she brushed off as she pulled out her tablet. “There’s something you need to see.”

She held out her tablet to Cisco, whose brows knitted together at what he saw. “What is this?”

“Let me see,” Barry said as he nudged aside Cisco’s hand that blocked the screen. A moving image of what looked like blood cells, some sort of violet energy pulsing between them, glowed on the screen before them.

“That,” Caitlin replied, taking back her tablet, “is a sample of your blue man’s blood.”

There was a brief pause as the boys tried to understand. “What did you do to it?” Barry asked.

“Nothing,” Caitlin answered, shifting uncomfortably as if she still had too much to say and not enough words to speak with. “That’s its natural- not normal, but natural- state. I was going to test for any allergies, but then I saw this, and-”  
“He’s a metahuman,” Cisco concluded.

Caitlin started to shift again. “Well, no.”

Barry narrowed his eyes. “If he isn’t a metahuman, then what is this?”

“ _ He’s _ not a metahuman,” Caitlin stated, and the other two awaited the rest of her revelation with anticipation. “ _ She _ is.”


	4. assumption of the risk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> also known as: welcome to bitchytown

“Who is she?” Cisco asked, interrupting the silence as the trio gazed out at the girl in the medical room.

Caitlin swallowed hard, taking in how pale the girl looked. “Her name’s Holly Stormcipher, twenty-six years old. She’s a doctor at Farraday General Hospital.”

“A doctor at twenty-six?” He asked. “Getting a doctorate takes-”

“Twelve years, for most people. But there’s alternate courses of study if your test scores are high enough and you know the right people. I would know,” Caitlin finished. “She’s almost a genius. National Merit Scholar, top of her class at NYU… this girl was definitely going places.”

_ Was. _

They went quiet again. Holly lay unmoving in the medical bed before them all. Pitch-black hair spilled over the pillow, surrounding her head like a halo, her olive-toned complexion faded to a sickly pale hue do to blood loss. Her face was marked by a thin scar, maybe two inches long, curving down along her hairline over her cheekbone. The blue man wasn’t a man at all, and the person Barry had been seeking out for months was lying unconscious in their medical room. She looked nothing like a vigilante- she looked like someone you’d want to have in your operating room. Somehow, though, she was both. 

“Who did this to her?” Barry asked coolly, trying to keep his eyes off the thick bandage over her lower ribs.

Caitlin shook her head, and he knew he wouldn’t like her answer. “I’m not sure. I think it was a point-blank shot to the abdomen, judging by the burns surrounding the wound, but I couldn’t find a bullet or projectile.”

“Blaster?” Cisco suggested.

Caitlin pursed her lips. “Maybe.”

“Maybe,” Barry echoed her.

By midnight, Holly was still out. Caitlin had almost fallen asleep three times with her tablet as a pillow. She’d made Cisco go home hours ago. When Barry watched her do it a fourth time, he made a decision. 

“Go home, Caitlin,” he said, just loud enough to wake her up.

She lifted her head, eyes half-lidded with sleep. She had marks from the tablet on her forehead, and it made Barry chuckle a little. “But Holly-”

“I’ll stay with her. She’s strong, take it from me. We’ll be okay,” Barry assured her. There was another sentence that remained unspoken, a silent promise to protect her. He remembered the ferocity and grace with which the blue man always fought, and he wondered if he could ever equate that.

Caitlin smiled gently, standing from the table and stretching a bit. The wavy hair he had admired lately was dull and flat, and he wondered just how long she’d been awake. He knew she ran on coffee, but a human could only take so much. “I guess you don’t have to worry about being gay anymore, huh?” She chuckled a bit, looking out at their patient. “Try to get some sleep.” She leaned over to kiss him on the forehead, then walked towards the door.

Barry did sleep, for around half an hour at a time. He would sometimes speed into the medical room with Holly, watching her slowed breaths and steady heartbeat, somehow fascinated by the illusion she’d projected to him. By day, a skilled and strikingly attractive doctor; by night, a hooded vigilante who had beaten the Flash on multiple occasions. 

He woke up from his fifth nap at two fifty-five in the morning.

She woke up thirteen minutes later.

She gasped on waking, dark eyes wide and panicked. He ran into the medical room and took hold of her wrists before she could rip out her IVs.  She struggled against him, cursing incoherently, but the sedative was still heavy in her blood and her usual strength was inhibited. Even then, it took Barry’s full force to hold her down.

“Listen to me, you’re okay,” he began, but it didn’t seem to ease her resistance. She shook her arms violently, pulling against his hold.  He tried a new angle. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. If you stop trying to kill me, I’ll tell you where you are,” Barry tried to explain to her through her panic.

That seemed to penetrate her aggression, and it tempted him to loosen his grip. The moment he did, she twisted her right fist free of his grip in the blink of an eye and swung a punch into his jaw. It hurt, but thanks to the sedative he remained intact. It probably wouldn’t even bruise.

After he’d stumbled away from her, she seemed to calm down a little. Holly’s gaze-- the same one that had made him doubt his sexuality-- focused on him, and he felt her panic fade enough so that he could approach her again. She seemed scared, which was saying a lot considering her double identity, but waking up somewhere strange, bandaged and in pain, could do that to anyone. She swallowed hard and struggled to a semi-upright position, leaning back on her elbows.

“Okay,” Barry said, calming down at the same rate that she did. “My name’s Barry. You’re in S.T.A.R. labs. I took you here after you got shot, because if I took you to a hospital, they’d arrest you. And I didn’t want that to happen.”

She stayed silent, eyes flicking over him and the room. It was pretty clear that she didn’t trust him. He wondered if the sedative had affected her speech, but then she raised an eyebrow at him and asked incredulously, “So you’re the Streak?”

He remembered Caitlin telling him she was a genius, but her deduction still took him by surprise. There wasn’t much of a point in lying, but he’d already told her his name; he’d gotten himself caught between a rock and a hard place. “Uh-”

“I knew it,” she smirked, laying her head back against the pillow. Her words came slowly, but they weren’t gentle. “You’re exactly the kind of asshole who saves the damsel in distress.”

“Whoa, what?” He asked, half shocked and half offended. “I’m  _ not  _ an asshole.”

Holly scoffed, rolling her eyes, and changed the subject. “That’s not the point. When can I get out of here?”

Barry’s eyes flickered to her bandages, then looked past her clouded glare and curled lip to the bags under her eyes and the absence of color from her skin. He rubbed his jaw, though, and reconsidered telling her the truth. “What’s the answer that won’t make you hit me?”

She scoffed. “The one that you don’t want to tell me because you think I will anyway.”

He smiled a bit-- ow-- and fought the urge to step away from her. “Not soon. You almost bled out. I mean, you could’ve died--”

“If you didn’t save me,” she finished, a sardonic grin teasing her lips. She flopped back down onto the cot, then winced. “Thank God for knights in shining armor… or red leather.”

He hated that she was so funny. All she did was insult him and he still didn’t want to leave. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

She was in the process of rolling into a more comfortable position, but he thought he heard something that sounded vaguely like, “Fuck off.”

 

“What’s your name?”

“Holliday Catherine Stormcipher.”

Caitlin tapped her screen. “Age?”

“Twenty-five and…" She paused, thinking. "Two months.”

Barry remembered the blue man calling him a kid, and realized with humor that Holly was, in fact, the younger of the two of them.

“Occupation?” Caitlin asked.

Holly smirked. “Saver of lives and kicker of ass.”

Caitlin smiled too. Barry wasn’t sure if it was the drugs wearing off or Holly genuinely liking Caitlin more than him, but their patient had developed a much sunnier disposition by the morning. “I’ll just put down ‘doctor/vigilante’.”

“Ooh, I’m a vigilante?” Holly asked excitedly. She obviously hadn’t spent much time considering her dangerous hobby before it had landed her in critical condition at what used to be the most sophisticated lab in the world. “I just tell people I have an interesting day off.”

Behind the glass, Barry and Cisco looked on in fascination. Caitlin was just making sure that Holly hadn’t sustained any permanent damage aside from physical scars, but Holly managed to make the standard questionnaire entertaining.

“I like her,” Cisco announced for the third time.

“She punched me in the face!” Barry protested. “Multiple times!”

Cisco shot him a shit-eating smile. “Maybe that’s why.”

“Barry told me I couldn’t go home for a while,” Holly began on the other side of the door, “is that true?” The boys went quiet to hear Caitlin’s response, and Barry hoped Holly didn’t break any of her bones.

Caitlin bit her lip. “You went through a traumatic experience,” she said regretfully. “We just want to help you. And to do that, we have to understand you.” She looked back to her tablet, but didn’t tap any buttons, making it obvious that she was only avoiding Holly’s gaze.

Holly swallowed hard, looking as if she were about to divulge a secret that she wasn't ready to acknowledge.  “So... you know about this?” Holly asked hesitantly, for the first time sounding human, then unfolded her hand from where it lay in her lap and effortlessly released an azure glow from the tips of her fingers to the base of her wrist like flame, or perhaps a star.

Barry sped in and yanked Caitlin away, Cisco recoiled, and Caitlin yelped, nearly dropping her tablet. Holly quickly extinguished the blaze. “Oh,” she muttered joylessly, “I forgot how that looks to normal people.”

“How-?” Barry muttered, at the same time Caitlin whispered, “Pyrokinesis?”

“I don't know," Holly said flatly, rubbing her hands over each other worriedly.

Everyone wished she’d do it again. There was a quality about the glow that was almost hypnotic. “That wasn’t fire,” Barry confirmed, having gotten a better look at it while he was running. “ _ That _ was very…”

“Blue?” Holly finished. “Yeah, well, you’re almost right. Not fire. It’s something like electricity, I think.”

“An extension of the electrical impulses in the brain beyond the physical form,” Wells interrupted. He wheeled up the ramp into the medical room, the only one so far with the ability to stop Holly talking. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Dr. Stormcipher.”

Holly swallowed hard, eyes wide and lips sealed. “You- you’re Harrison Wells.” It was easy to see she  was starstruck.

“Yes, and you’re an anesthesiologist who earned herself a full ride to NYU,” he mimicked, sounding almost as happy in his own detached way. “You’re right beside Caitlin and Cisco here on my list. Promising talent.”

“Wow,” she whispered, barely audible. Her voice sounded like a smile, but by the time the rest of the team looked back at her it was hidden. They couldn’t help but feel as if they’d missed something precious. Holly continued as if it had never happened. “How do you know what I can do?”

Dr. Wells looked like he’d finally found one of his own kind. “You’re a genius-”

“You tested my blood while I was out,” she nodded. But questions still poured from her lips, sabotaging her scientist’s facade for the young woman beneath the surface. “But I’ve tested my blood and it came up normal. How did you do that? What kind of tech do you have?” She tried again to get out of bed, but recoiled when the movement arced pain through her body.

“Better not,” Caitlin cautioned, helping Holly settle back into the bed.

“It’ll be much better when you see it yourself,” he promised.

Holly frowned slightly. “When would I get to see it?”

Dr. Wells smiled enigmatically. Somehow, Holly knew she was going to like what he had planned. But he didn’t tell all quite yet. “Tell you what: I’ll explain as soon as you walk into my office and ask.”

A spark illuminated Holly’s eyes and she nodded. “Yes, sir.”

So far, Barry could count on one hand the emotions he’d seen Holly show- fury, fear, annoyance, and respect. Was respect an emotion? Perhaps ‘intrigue’ was a better word.

He returned to the task at hand. “So what exactly is she doing when she…” he mimicked Holly’s opening hand and the spire of blue light that had erupted from it with a ‘whoosh’.

“She,” Holly interjected, “is sitting right here. Could you maybe talk about me like I’m in the room with you?” The look she shot Cisco made him cringe.

“Holly,” Dr. Wells obliged, “you know what you can do, don’t you?” He asked the question as her colleague, not the scientist she’d admired for years and years. It helped to break her walls down, and Caitlin worried for whatever Holly was protecting behind them.

Holly unwittingly nodded. “Speaking frankly, I think I can suck the electricity out of someone’s mind.”

The team remained quiet, somewhat awed, as she produced the blue glow again. “I call it a life force,” she explained like a tour guide. “It’s basically the inherent power of a person to survive. Or, as it’s commonly referred to, electricity.”

“Yours?” Caitlin asked, stepping closer.

“No.” She didn’t elaborate on that. “It’s a lot harder to control it than it looks. I touch people without my gloves on and  _ boom _ , they’re unconscious or worse.” Holly turned her hand over, and the glow traced her movements in a manner similar to that of solar flares. 

Barry had only understood about half of that. “English?” He asked, briefly reminded of Joe when Barry rattled off a scientific explanation at a crime scene.

Holly sighed, closing her eyes before she could roll them. Almost reluctantly, ashamed at her penchant for the nerdy, she asked, “Have you ever seen Doctor Who?”

“Yeah,” Barry replied, and the same time Cisco gasped and grinned.

Holly looked at Cisco with an expression resembling fondness- the nerd bond- and explained, “It’s kind of like regeneration energy, except I can’t actually regenerate. I can just use this to heal other people.”

“Cool,” Cisco murmured, eyes wide. “Does doing that-” he pointed to her glowing hand- “use it up?”

“Nah, just makes it visible.” she said, then let the light fade back into her skin. Along with the gradual disappearance of her razor wit, she looked better, too- her black hair contrasted less startlingly against her face, the color returning to her cheeks. “It’s great for combating boredom,” she added with a half-shrug.

Sensing that Holly was returning to her normal state, Dr. Wells seemed satisfied and rotated his chair to exit. “I’ll see you again soon, Dr. Stormcipher.”

She watched him go, then looked back to Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco. “He seems… cool.”

“He’s definitely cool,” Cisco confirmed.

But Holly was already staring at Barry again, her scrutinizing gaze making him feel like he was under a microscope. Oddly enough, he knew that look well; he’d worn it countless times. She saw something that she didn’t understand.

“What?” He asked, careful not to sound too defensive.

She seemed to have settled since their last conversation. “I broke your nose a month ago.” She tilted her head to the right and narrowed her eyes. “Either you’ve got a  _ really  _ great doctor, or-”

“He heals really quickly,” Caitlin finished. “ _ And _ he has an amazing doctor.”

Holly smirked. “Well, if I’d known you were cute I would’ve avoided your face. Unless, of course, you’re cute  _ because  _ I broke your nose. No offense.”

“Oh,” he laughed uncomfortably, not exactly sure how to respond to that. “Well, none taken.”

Holly still wasn’t really smiling, but she was definitely pleased at his reaction. He only got to appreciate her for a moment, though, because she soon turned to Caitlin and asked how she could start to get on her feet again.


	5. redefining human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> also known as: shit she's hot

It took her four days to get up and moving. She wasn’t quite as fluid as she usually was, but in the span of ninety-six hours, Holly was walking into the lab and asking what everyone was all hyped up about.

Everyone’s eyes went up to her, looking like an entirely different person than the dying girl Barry’d scooped up from the concrete four days ago. Her long black hair was swept over her right shoulder, wearing Caitlin’s clothes she’d laid over the end of her cot. The shirt was a deep red chambray, the jeans black as her hair and high-waisted. With the black boots she was exactly as tall as Barry, and when she sidled forward, all confident smirks and crossed arms, it intimidated everyone a little. A bit because an insanely powerful girl who’d been rendered immobile was now, well, mobile, but mostly because she was shockingly pretty.

“What?” She asked, noticing the way they hadn’t looked away yet.

Barry was smiling a lot for someone who’d been on the receiving end of Holly’s wrath more than a few times. He didn’t look away when everyone else did, instead letting out a breathy laugh before saying, “Hi.”

Holly glanced at him. “Hi.” She leaned over Caitlin’s shoulder as she searched for a bit of surveillance footage that apparently reeked of metahuman action. “A bit lacking on the intelligence front.” One man in black whaled on a single strip mall store, shooting down the owner before destroying the camera.

She puffed air through her cheeks and asked, “So why is this significant again?”

Barry didn’t answer until Holly smacked him in the shoulder. “Oh. Yeah, this only shows one guy, but when I was there earlier with the CCPD, there were six sets of footprints.”

“You know footprint analysis?” Holly wondered if there were any other talents she’d overlooked while occupied with the Streak’s speed. 

When she looked at him, he almost forgot how to speak. She’d somehow kept every aspect of the blue man’s attractiveness and combined it with the intrigue of a young genius. “Yeah, learned it from some old files at the station.” Barry wondered if she knew he was trying to impress her.

She completely ignored the attempt, along with her momentary thought that maybe the Flash wasn't a huge douchebag. Of course he was. Holly briefly recalled how easy it was to exact her revenge on him and knew no one without a little too much pride could get taken down that easily. “So he has a crew. I'm still not seeing the whole ‘metahuman’ proof.”

“All the footprints were identical,” Barry added, giving Holly pause. She might have had some unexplainable abilities herself, but her doctor’s mind told her to eliminate all rational possibilities before jumping to the impossible. 

“So either we have a group of six guys with the same shoes in the same size-” she began. 

“-or we're dealing with another side effect of that accelerator,” Caitlin finished. 

Cisco had been quiet since Holly had entered, but he finally snapped out of it when his tablet buzzed for his attention. “Oh. The samples are ready– Caitlin, could you help me?”

“Sure,” she chirped, standing and following Cisco.

Holly had plopped down into Caitlin’s chair, absently drumming her fingers on the white countertop. Her mind was obviously somewhere else, because if she had been focused she'd have felt Barry's glances at her. He couldn't really help it. She was new and interesting and as smart as he was. What was a kid to do?

“Barry, could you give Dr. Stormcipher and I some privacy?” Dr. Wells asked, breaking the silence and the tension all but one of them had felt.

“Uh, sure.” Barry muttered, following Caitlin and Cisco. 

With everyone else gone, Holly seemed at ease. She saw Dr. Wells as one of her own. Not to mention her childhood hero. “Why do you want to talk to me?” She asked, hiding her excitement.

“Holly, you’re a scientist. You stop at nothing to get your questions answered, so I hope you’ll understand why I have so many. Starting with this-- why are you afraid of your abilities?” He asked bluntly.

Her eyebrows drew together, the muscles in her shoulders tightening beneath Cait’s satiny shirt. “Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t enjoy sucking the life out of people." She continued speaking at Dr. Wells' confused expression. "Being a doctor and all, it’s kind of the opposite of my job. My patients are lucky I always wear latex gloves.”

Wells nodded thoughtfully. “You can’t control your abilities.”

She laughed mournfully, but couldn't form an answer.

“I'm very curious about those abilities, Holly,” he stated frankly. “I'm also intrigued as to why you never use them.”

Holly’s shoulders tightened and her expression hardened defensively. “I  _ do _ use them.”

“Don't lie to me,” Dr. Wells cautioned her.

She didn't frequently back down, but she did so this time out of respect. “I don't like what I can do.”

“Give life? Heal all wounds?” He asked, wryly gesturing to his legs. “That sounds pretty amazing to me.”

Holly exhaled a dry laugh. “Yeah. Me too. But that's not what I can do. I said I could control life, not give it,” she specified. When she was met with silence, she disclosed the truth. “Sure, I can give my extra electricity to someone with a single touch. But where do you think I get that life? They don't sell it at Wal-Mart, for sure.” Her voice began to rise in disgust. “Because I get them from other people. I have to choose who deserves to have their life sucked out of them. It doesn't always kill them, but it hurts. A lot.” She stopped talking abruptly, gripping the countertop so hard that her knuckles turned white. 

“Holly,” Dr. Wells said soothingly, wheeling closer, “you're not a mistake.”

She smiled joylessly. “I'd have given my life to hear you say that to me when I was thirteen. But here I am, choosing who lives and who dies when no one should be able to decide.”

He remained quiet for a moment, watching the girl at the counter, staring at her hands like she’d lose control of them if she looked away. Somehow, Holly remained a paradox; terrified and terrifying. “I have a proposal for you, Dr. Stormcipher,” he said evenly. “I think you have something I can use, something that would help the Flash stay running. It’s not what you’d call conventional, but I have a feeling you’d be spectacular at it.”

Holly glanced up. “I’m listening.”

“You majored in biomedicine, correct?”

“With my master’s,” she nodded.

Dr. Wells smiled, and it vaguely reminded Holly of a serpent, the way he didn’t just bare his teeth but had a darkly amused tinge to his expression. “I think you’d be an invaluable addition to our team here.”

“I already have a job,” Holly replied, cheeks blushed a little at the idea of working at S.T.A.R. labs.

He smiled like he had a secret. "I know."

Someone yelled her name from 

 

“It looks like whoever hit this guy left a little present behind,” Caitlin murmured, half to herself and half to Holly. She raised her head from the microscope and looked to her new partner in crime. “Are you seeing the-”

“Excess of epithelial trace?” Holly finished, looking into her own equipment. She looked up at Caitlin, appearing surprisingly unmoved to be confronted by the impossible. “I can swab it, if you want to prep the database,” she offered.

Caitlin seemed happily unprepared to have someone like Holly at her side, and agreed gladly. “Sure, I’ll narrow down the specs.”

Cisco and Barry, usually caught up in the hustle and bustle, found themselves unneeded as the two girls ran the show. Neither was sure if he enjoyed being unnecessary, but watching the two women working in the lab like they’d never felt more at home was a bit fascinating. Holly had managed to make herself essential to the team in under a week, and Barry felt an unprecedented tinge of jealousy that it had taken him weeks to acclimate when she’d done it so quickly. He thought he was supposed to be the fast one.

He also wished he could work beside her, but he didn’t doubt he’d get in her way somehow and she’d make him regret it.

“We’ve got a match,” Caitlin announced from the cortex, and Holly looked out from the lab to see the identification on the screens across the room. “Name’s Danton Black, obviously affected by the explosion.”

Holly squinted at the model of Black’s cells and shook her head in disbelief. “He’s in a state of constant replication usually only found in-”

“Babies,” Barry finished. “We knew that part already. So this guy can replicate his own cells an indefinite amount of times- but I thought cloning was impossible.”

Holly stepped back to take in all of the screens at once. “So did I.”

“Not according to his research,” Cisco put in, changing the screen that had displayed Black’s cellular model to redacted pages of scientific diagrams and examples. “He was making groundbreaking progress on this, but it looks like his employer terminated him for it.”

“Why would Simon Stagg end this kind of progress? It could save countless lives,” Caitlin wondered aloud.

“Unless he wanted to take credit for Black’s work,” Holly murmured, barely audible. Then, louder, she explained. “Simon Stagg is a total asshole., I work with some of his ex-employees- the guy doesn’t really care about saving people, he just wants to get even richer. My boss worked for him a few years back, nearly developed the cure for the common cold. But as soon as Stagg found out, he fired him and put him under confidentiality.”

Caitlin’s hazel eyes widened. “That makes a lot of sense. It explains why he’s done everything so far, for practice  _ and  _ revenge.”

“He’s going for Stagg next,” Barry concluded, then glanced towards Holly. She seemed completely undeterred by that statement, though, and he couldn’t help but want to try again. 

He hesitated, though, before speaking. Did he want to impress Holly or her alter ego?

“The guy kind of has it coming,” Cisco shrugged, crossing to stand behind Holly. Caitlin kept talking, but he completely failed to be inconspicuous as he took in her height, and she waited until he was fully staring to turn her head and catch him red-handed. He froze, resembling a deer in the headlights. A vaguely entertained smirk flashed across her face for a split second, but this time Barry saw it. It wasn’t a real smile, but it was something, and Cisco had been on the receiving end. This time, the jealousy came in a pang.

“-and who knows what else,” Caitlin said, then realized only Holly was paying the slightest bit of attention. She sighed, muttered incoherently about testosterone, and sat back down.

Holly finally moved away from Cisco, who looked ready to faint with elation before he made his way back towards Barry. “So someone has to intercept him before he goes Charlie’s Angels on Stagg,” Holly said simply.

Cisco gasped the same way he did when she’d talked about Doctor Who. “Dude, she knows Charlie’s Angels,” he hissed to Barry.

At the same time, Caitlin made a face. “I'm not seeing anything angelic about this guy.”

Holly waved a hand as if to clear the reference from the air. “Never mind that. How can we stop him?” 

Caitlin shook her head. “Working on that.”

“I can help,” she volunteered, but Caitlin met her with a stern expression. 

“You need to rest,” she ordered. 

Holly scowled. “I'm okay, I told you. I feel okay, I look okay-”

“Better than okay,” Cisco murmured. 

Holly didn't even bother replying to him. “-I  _ am _ okay! What do want me to do, whoop the Flash again to prove it?”

“I'm  _ not _ down with that,” Barry put in, earning a glare from Holly.

“Just because you know I can and will do it,” she muttered, eyes flashing.

Barry tried to protest, but Caitlin still shook her head. “No. You're still downing meds by the handful, I'm not having you running around here like you didn't get shot five days ago.” 

“You sound like my dad,” Holly grunted, crossing her arms over her injury. “Always dishing out orders.”

“Yeah, takes one to know one,” Barry said quietly.

Apparently not quietly enough, since Holly whirled on him with the same dangerous energy as the blue man and much more fury. She was clenching her jaw, face reddening as she pushed him against the wall with excessive force. Speedster or not, Barry was definitely intimidated. “I can take you down right here, Allen,” she spat, eyes like gun barrels while Caitlin and Cisco tried to intervene. He kept forgetting she was beautiful and deadly all at once.

Still, he didn't like being threatened, even if it was by a girl. He started running faster than she could process, ducking around her and pinning her arms behind her back.

He stopped there to try and fight back with words, but there was his mistake. She slipped her foot between his legs and kicked him in the Achilles tendon with enough force to knock him off-balance, from where she threw her weight to the side and took them both to the floor, her weight landing on his chest full-force. It knocked the air out of him and he began coughing before wrapping his forearm around her neck and attempting a headlock. Her hair tickled his face, but he tried to get her immobile anyway. 

“That’s cute,” she snorted.

He nearly said, ‘so are you’.

Taking advantage of his loose grip, she turned her head and bit the inside of his elbow. He recoiled with a short yelp, and she flipped over and placed a knee on his arm he’d tried to pin her with and dropped the other into his chest like before. It still worked..

The fight drowned out the sound of an electric wheelchair, and just as Holly leaned forward as if to hit him, Dr. Wells shouted, “Stop, both of you!”

They both froze. Caitlin and Cisco had still been trying to get their attention off each other, keeping their careful distance so as to avoid any stray attacks on each other. It was then, prepared to run, when Barry realized Holly hadn’t used her powers at all and she’d still held her ground against him 

“Would someone like to explain exactly what is going on here?” He asked in his eerily calm tone. The worst part about it was everyone sensed his anger but couldn’t quite hear it in his voice.

Holly finally pulled her knee off of Barry’s ribs, allowing him to breathe again. She stood up on her own, one hand coming up absently to touch her throat where he’d tried to keep her in a headlock. She glanced down at Barry for a second, then sighed shortly and extended a hand to him.

He narrowed his eyes at the silent truce, then took her hand. She pulled him to his feet with ease, and he rubbed his arm where she’d bitten him.

“Won’t happen again,” Holly said to Wells, and Barry made a face at her. It wouldn’t?

Dr. Wells dismissed the fact that Holly hadn’t really answered his question and nodded. “I trust that it won’t. We have greater enemies than each other.”

“Yeah, we do,” Holly murmured. By the look on her face, it was probably more to herself than to any specific person, but Barry heard it and couldn’t help but wonder who Holly was fighting.

Aside from him, of course.

“Any progress on the metahuman?” Dr. Wells asked.

Caitlin seemed so relieved to have the two most dangerous people in the city pacified that she jumped at the chance to change the subject. “Danton Black’s endgame is Simon Stagg, his previous employer who stole his research on cloning and fired him.”

“Captain Clone,” Cisco proposed, and when his only answer was a glare from Caitlin, he frowned. “I’ll think of a better one.”

 

“You’re bleeding.”

Holly broke free from her trance. Her eyes focused on Barry, for the first time appearing almost kind. “Hm?” He nodded towards her stomach, and she looked down to see a dark stain spreading across her shirt. “Oh. Probably broke a few stitches while we were fighting.”

“Stitches?” Barry asked in horror. 

Holly rolled her eyes. “Yeah, those tend to help after you get  _ shot _ .” She stood up from her seat at the counter and started towards the medical room. She inspected the damage she’d done to Caitlin’s shirt and pressed her lips together in frustration. Her blood looked nearly black against the deep red. “This sucks,” she muttered as she turned away, and Barry hoped she was understating the situation on purpose.

“Let me help,” he offered. “You can’t stitch yourself.”

“Aww, how hypermasculine of you,” Holly snapped, then paused in her walking. She turned back, biting her lip regretfully. He’d never seen her reconsider an insult. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

Seeing as that was the closest semblance to an apology he was going to get, Barry shrugged. “It’s fine. I’ve been called worse.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Holly quipped, but this time there was an inherent softness in her voice that made it obvious she didn’t mean to do any real damage. She was still looking at him thoughtfully, wondering if he could actually be of any help. Her gaze was calculated, but his was not. “Come on,” she decided, “you can at least get the needle and thread for me.”

He smiled, then remembered he was only being invited because she was hurt and changed his expression into a serious one. “Did we do that?” He asked, referring to her reopened injury.

“Did  _ you  _ do it, you mean,” Holly corrected him, then smirked and shook her head as she sat up on her cot. “No. My dad always told me I was a whiner. Fixed that pretty fast.”

Barry laughed lightly, searching through the cabinet for what she needed. “Your dad sounds like a tough sell.”

He heard from behind him a noise that nearly that sounded like a giggle, but by the time he had turned he only saw the fading remnants of it on her face. More shockingly, he watched her shrug Caitlin’s shirt off. She had abs she’d worked to tone, unlike Barry, and a deep gray bra on that was now stained a rusty red near the bottom on the left side. “Shit,” she muttered, inspecting the ripped stitches and blood.

As she leaned forward, a swath of hair fell forward and obscured her vision. She felt for a hairband on her wrist, but couldn’t find one.

When she looked up, Barry had already extended a hand towards her with a hairband in the palm of his hand. She looked up at him in confusion, probably wondering why he’d be nice to him after the list of fights they’d gotten into, one of which had caused her to end up where she was.

But she took the elastic anyway. “Where’d you get one of these?” She gathered her hair into a ponytail at the back of her head, arching her back. It took more self-discipline than Barry cared to admit to avoid looking at her chest.

He shrugged, beginning to smile without realizing it. “Iris always forgets them, I keep a few on hand in case she asks for one.”

“Oh,” Holly said mischievously, taking the needle and thread. “Who’s Iris?”

Barry was taken aback for a moment, then remembered the girl was a genius. Of course she could see. He laughed self-consciously. “That obvious, huh?”

“Yep,” Holly said, popping the ‘p’. She took a deep breath and then began to stitch herself up. She bit her bottom lip as she concentrated, but she still sucked in a breath every time she moved the needle. 

Barry felt a bit useless just watching her, so he offered his assistance again. “Are you sure you don’t want help?”

Holly sighed, and he prepared for a verbal lashing. “Want help? No. Need help?” She said with reluctance. She hesitated again before she admitted, “Maybe.”

Realizing he was actually gaining a bit of Holly’s trust, Barry tentatively took the needle from her hand, her fingers now crimson. “Sorry if this hurts,” he apologized in advance. He was halfway afraid she’d break his nose again if he messed up.

“It’s not your fault,” she assured him, then gave him a short nod to cue him to start.

He cautiously began the job, and when Holly moved, he barely resisted flinching. But she didn’t hit him- instead, she grabbed the wrist of his free hand that had come to rest on her shoulder. Her fingers were long and surprisingly delicate, and again Barry wondered how someone like Holly had become the blue man. Again, he wondered how he’d never even suspected her before Caitlin revealed her real identity.

“I’m not going to hit you,” she said evenly, voice not matching the ugly wound he was looking at.

He nodded nervously, then kept working. Her grip tightened when he reached an especially painful area, but she never outright expressed pain. Where had the child Holly had once been disappeared to?

As he finished the work, he tried to start a real conversation. “So why did you dress like a guy to do all that stuff you did?” 

Holly snorted. “What, be myself and watch as people started to see me as a wannabe and not a hero in my own right? No way. I didn’t have time to present my case of gender equality, I just had to be taken seriously and fast.”

He thought about it, then realized she was right. Holly was obviously worth more than lustrous hair and glimmering eyes, but he wondered if he’d think of her the same way if she hadn’t been the mysterious hooded vigilante before she’d been the beautiful doctor. The fact he thought he probably wouldn’t have made him doubt just how heroic he was after all. The blue man had shown him his flaws long before taking off his hood, either way. It just seemed that now, Holly and Barry acting as themselves, the topic felt much more personal.

Maybe he’d been hooded, too.

“I never really thought of that,” he admitted. “I’m glad you’re a girl, though.”

“Why?” Holly asked with a level of solemnity that took him by surprise. He met her eyes and saw something flash in their dark depths, but the name for it eluded him. Hurt? Shame?

He paused and smiled weakly. “You can prove the world wrong.”

Desperation. That’s what he’d seen.

“Girls shouldn’t have to try like you did to be a hero,” he finished. The desperation evaporated, replaced by relief. He’d stumbled across something sensitive. By what he’d seen of Holly, he knew he should be careful not to do it again. “Well,” he said with the tentative roots of a smile, “not that you had to try too hard to kick my butt.”

She chuckled and looked to her lap. “I had to play dirty.”

The memory of a kiss like no other replayed in his mind’s eye. The blue man in the museum, sharp mouth on his, a hand clad in a broken-in leather glove brushing against his jaw and a thousand thoughts spilling into his mind like the unexpected and earth-shaking touch of violent lips had set them flying free.

If that was Holly’s version of playing dirty, he could only imagine what she was like when she ignored the rules completely. But then again, Holly was the blue man in the same sense that Barry was the Flash. Like the blue man- no, Holly- had said, he needed to know his limits. Disconnected memories of the blue man flashed through his mind, and looking back he could see they possessed the same voice, jaw, lips. Holly in no way had a masculine voice, but since Barry had been expecting a man, he’d accepted everything he saw and heard to be male. It was, to put it frankly, mind-boggling.

“You definitely did that,” Barry laughed. “I wasn’t sure if I’d been beaten by you or fallen in love with you.”

“Probably both,” she said matter-of-factly.

Barry laughed, and it took him a moment to realize he wasn’t alone in that. A real, genuine laugh harmonized with his. He snapped his gaze back to Holly and finally saw her smile. Somehow, the fact that he was the first and only person to have witnessed it made him feel like the sun had come out inside the lab. When she smiled, it made the waiting very worth it.

The smile faded from her face, but light remained glimmering in her eyes when she looked back up at Barry. “You know, you’re the funniest douche I’ve ever met,” she teased, and again it worked.

“I’m not a douche!” Barry insisted again, and he earned himself another smile.

It felt like the first day of summer when he’d been in high school, like the sun fighting to be seen through a thunderstorm. So that’s where her brightness had been hiding, he thought, then realized that watching her smile felt like running at a new top speed while he was standing still.

She shook her head at him. “Yeah, I’ll be the judge of that.” He had finally seen past the blue man and was mesmerized by Holly. Even then, it stupefied him that she still embodied all that power beneath her sun-toned skin. She’d hit the golden ratio of brains, brawn, and beauty. 

And then he realized that he’d finished stitching her wound a while ago. He didn’t really have a reason to be there anymore, but he didn’t want to leave. 

“Are you headed home now?” He asked, making conversation. It was late again, but Holly had made no move towards the door. 

She pulled Caitlin’s shirt back on over her shoulders, leaving it unbuttoned. “Nope. Dr. Snow’s orders that I stay under supervision all night, which wouldn’t suck as much if I had a semi-comfortable bed instead of this stupid thing.” She lightly punched the cot she was sitting on for good measure.

He didn’t expect to hear himself ask, “Would you want to stay over at my place?”

He didn’t expect for Holly to shrug and reply, “If you’ve got a spare bed.”

She hopped down and pulled open the drawer in the side table, pulling out a small black bundle that Barry recognized as her leather gloves. She pulled them on like it was second nature. “You sure?”

He shrugged, pretending his heartbeat hadn’t dramatically increased. “Yeah, of course. I mean, you’d do the same for me.”

“Would I?” She countered playfully, starting for the door.

He followed, smiling unconsciously. “Oh yeah, I forgot you think I’m a jerk.”

“Douche,” she corrected him. “And I’ll reconsider depending on how well you do in the next few days.”

There was never a moment when Holly’s razor wit even faltered in the slightest. It certainly kept things interesting. “How am I doing now?”

“Breaking me out of here is a good start.”

“I’ll try to keep it up.”

 


	6. bitchsnake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> also known as: damn holly back at it again with the punching people

“You don’t happen to be afraid of rats, do you?”

Holly’s blank expression didn’t change. It had been another three days since she’d slept in a good bed, courtesy of Barry. She hadn’t outright lied to him, of course, just allowed him to think that Caitlin had decided to let her go home. “No.”

Dr. Wells led her into the rarely-used back lab, where a line of about ten white rodents awaited them in cages. They made a pint-sized cacophony with their squeaking and scratching and clanging at the metal bars.

“What’s this for?” Holly asked flatly.

Wells approached the table and turned to face the young woman. “I want you to show me your abilities.”

“No,” Holly immediately refused.

“It’s for your own good,” he supplied.

She shook her head and repeated herself. “No.”

He pressed his lips together, draining the blood from them. “Holly, I want to help you, but I want to know the extent of what you can do before I try to do that.”

“I said no.”

“Holly-”

“It’s not going to happen.”

Wells narrowed his eyes at the young doctor. She hadn’t even had to think about his request before she’d shot it down, meaning she’d thought about it before. She either didn’t want her power or couldn’t control it- or both. “You don’t understand the effect this could have on the world.”

She laughed humorlessly. “Oh, believe me, I do.”

He tilted his head, recognizing that tone of voice. He’d mimicked it before. “You hurt someone, didn’t you?”

Holly didn’t need to deign that with an answer. Wells knew by the hardness of her eyes, the slight tightening of her face that made her look a little older. “You want me to kill these rats, don’t you?” She asked, her boots tapping a rhythm on the linoleum as she approached the first cage furthest from him. She opened the small door at the top, and the creature within squealed with shock- something had changed around it.

Wells didn’t speak at first as Holly reached inside the metal grate and removed the rodent. It writhed and wriggled in her grip, hairless pink tail slapping the inside of her wrist in its panic. “You give life and bring death,” he enunciated, then met her eyes. “I think you know what I want you to do.”

Holly looked oddly removed from the situation as she placed her finger and thumb on either side of the squirming rat’s neck and squeezed gently, just enough to close its windpipe. The roaring inside her raced to the border of her fingers, begging for her to set it free, begging to take its next victim. She had the power to kill. It kept flailing, suspended in midair and held only by her fingers. After two seconds, it had slowed. After five, it had nearly stopped moving altogether save for the twitching of its tail.

She hadn’t broken eye contact with Wells. “Here’s how you give life.”

Holly dropped the rodent back into its cage, where it slowly got to its feet and continued living as if it hadn’t just faced death. “And this,” she moved on to the second cage, “is how you bring death.” This rat seemed too calm in her grasp, not wriggling nearly as much as the first. Holly raised her free hand to hold its head, and her eyes bored into Wells’.

A snap pierced the air, followed by the thump of the rat’s carcass back into its cage.

Time passed. It was late. The lab at night resembled a galaxy; pitch black save for colorful blinking lights that Holly had entertained herself with, imagining they were truly stars like she hadn’t seen since the night Barry had almost redeemed himself. She missed the smell of fresh air.

But her mission that night wasn’t to escape. It was to redeem herself.

The rats hadn’t been moved, and now the room smelled of feces. The dim light of the computers in the back lab barely illuminated the space. Holly was exhausted. Still, sleeping wasn’t exactly an option when she kept feeling the neck of that rodent snapping between her fingers like a twig. It was hard to forget.

She walked to the second cage and reached in, removing the small body of the rat and cradling it in the palm of her hand. She remembered the coldness in Wells’ eyes that seeped into her, soaking the air with the unstoppable urge to show him he was so, so wrong.

She had to prove she was worth something more. To Wells. To herself.

Her hand began to tingle softly. Pressure built beneath her flesh until it combusted, and then the room was no longer dark. Instead, a flare of indigo burst forth from her fingertips like flame, shining brilliantly for a moment before fading to a calm glow. Holly smiled and thought of the rat’s stillness as she’d held it, alive, before soaking her hands in its blood. First it had been beautifully alive.

The rat began to twitch in the palm of her hand. Holly found her smile widening, relieved to have finally released the pressure of thirteen lives pulsing inside her skin. It didn’t take much more than that initial burst to restore the rat. Still, she let the glow spread up her arm to envelope her in the deep color, the feeling like moonlight on blushed cheeks.

_ There were cool, lotioned hands combing through Holly’s hair, gently brushing her exposed back as they worked. Her face was nearly unrecognizable, contoured and painted like a doll’s. Downstairs, she heard boys’ voices, laughing as they conversed.  _

_ The neckline plunged deep down Holly’s chest, and she wondered if her heartbeat was visible, too.  _

_ “I don’t want to wear this,” she whispered again. _

_ Her mother sighed exasperatedly. “Sweetheart, you look phenomenal. I knew you’d blossom one day, and here we are. It’s just time to show the rest of the world.” _

_ Holly’s eyes wandered, tracing the paths of her body like she imagined a stranger’s would. The curve of her chest, the slope of her back, exposed collarbones that were almost too defined. Her brilliant red lips. Her eyes seemed too young for the rest of her, and the sight of her reflection made Holly feel sick. _

_ “Behave, Holly,” her mother reminded her. Steel ran through her voice. _

Snap.

The glow intensified for half a moment, then faded. The rat had stopped moving, once again a carcass in the cradle of her palm.

She couldn’t say she slept well.

And Wells still watched, omnipresent, watching and rewinding as Holly recharged a simple life form. It seemed, like so many others, she had an unfortunate conscience. Killing it was unfortunate, but he believed that maybe she could learn.

Her conscience could be forgiven for her gift. And now that he’d seen it, Harrison Wells was certain that she was capable of everything he hoped she would be. Now it was just a matter of time until the rest of the team saw what their new addition could do and off they went.

He walked along the wall of televisions in his home, one bearing the video of an impossible feat and another a photograph of a girl in a violet-blue uniform and streaks of dark color over her eyes, black hair falling loose from her ponytail. If she was to become the chooser of the slain, fulfilling his endgame, she would have to recognize the extent of her power.

He didn’t expect that it would be easy. Accepting one’s inherent darkness never was.

“You look awful,” Barry deadpanned the next morning.

“I don’t corroborate that,” Cisco put in, then promptly exited the room before she could nail him with a glower. She didn’t exactly look her best. Her eyes weren’t as sharp as usual, her complexion slightly sallow. 

Left with no target, Holly simply scowled at no one in particular.

Caitlin entered, elbowing past Barry as she walked. Her boot heels tapped the floor rhythmically. “I think you might be able to go home tonight, your stitches are looking good.”

Holly tossed her ponytail, attempting to recover her smooth attitude. “Just like the rest of me.”

Caitlin began to smirk, but made sure it had disappeared before Holly saw it. She’d taught her that trick. Before she reinserted Holly’s IV, she paused. “How much do you know about noxious gas?”

All eyes focused on Holly.

She shook her head, then shrugged. “A few basics, I used to help Asshole-- _Ashton_ \-- study for a few tests. I think that was on a few of them.”

Caitlin let loose a real smile. “Asshole?”

“Ashton,” Holly clarified. "His name is Ashton."

Caitlin still grinned. “Well, I can use your help anyway. Barry and I are heading to the station, so you and Cisco will be running the house back here. You feeling up to a little lab work?”

Holly’s expression brightened slowly. She and Caitlin spoke the same language of saving people with science. Lab work wasn’t the best way to spend a day, but anything was better than sitting around with a numb butt. “Definitely.”

She kicked off the sheets and stood, black leggings and gray tunic somehow suiting her better than some girls were flattered by their prom dresses. She still had the hairband Barry had given her, and she began weaving her hair into a French braid as Caitlin caught her up on the current case. They walked in step down the ramp to the cortex, Caitlin gesturing for effect as she explained the conundrum of the choking victims in the restaurant.

Cisco sighed from behind Barry. “Am I crazy or does all of this suddenly become much more interesting when they’re talking about it?”

Holding Caitlin’s tablet, Holly didn’t bother looking up. “I can hear you, Cisco.”

“Sorry.”

She immediately moved on. Barry had to wonder if she was used to this. “This is hydrogen cyanide, typically used in the death penalty. But what,” she asked, zooming in on a highlighted segment of the sample, “is that?”

“Organic material,” Cisco murmured, squinting at the televisions. “Someone else’s DNA-”

“-inside his lungs?” Caitlin finished for him, then playfully nudged Holly. “You, my friend, are making quite a name for yourself around here.”

Holly lifted her chin proudly. “Yeah, well, I’m not done.” She handed Caitlin her tablet again and backed towards the lab. “If I can isolate that, I can narrow down if the attacker was male or female at least. Genetics were pretty easy for me.”

Barry cleared his throat, having held his hand up for a few minutes now. When everyone looked towards him, he suggested, “Or we could just try the police database for death row inmates getting gassed on the night the particle accelerator exploded?”

After a moment of quiet, he got his answer. “Surprisingly good idea,” Holly nodded, changing her direction of motion. “Go for it.” Barry wanted to flinch as she crossed behind the table to stand beside him, but she didn’t even touch him.

“Dishing out orders already, Holly?” Dr. Wells asked, and suddenly her pace became tight and controlled instead of the leisurely walk she had used moments ago. A hint of her admiration for him flickered across her face, but it was soon replaced by stoic defiance. She swallowed hard and looked towards him, waiting for criticism. She was soon to discover she had waited in vain. “Go on. I think you’ve got a talent for it.”

Holly shook her head to clear it, then tried to get into the database. She was only met with a red screen that blocked her entrance. “I can’t access it from here,” she groaned in irritation. She reached back, probably for a chair, but found her hand coming into contact with Barry’s wrist.

A feeling like an electric shock shot up Barry’s arm in tandem with extreme dizziness. He fell back into a chair beside Holly, suddenly weak. He felt like he hadn’t slept in a year, even though he had gotten about ten hours the previous night.

“You okay?” Cisco asked, first looking at Barry and then to Holly, who had gone suddenly pale as she shrank away from him. She wrapped her hands in her shirt and ran back into the medical room, making no apology.

“Yeah, fine,” he muttered, shaking off the exhaustion. “I’ll go access the police database from the CCPD.” He’d spoken it loudly, for Holly’s benefit, but received no reply.

Dr. Wells managed to corner her in the lab again later. “When are you going to stop being afraid?”

Holly’s jaw tensed. She liked to convince herself that she wasn’t scared of anything, but when she had almost begun to believe she controlled whatever awful force was breaking her at the seams and was proven wrong, anything she told herself seemed shaky now. She remembered the terror of those first weeks after the explosion. Even if she had confessed, no one would believe her. She’d be caught in a freakshow, dissected, studied like a specimen.

The last time she’d lost control, innocent people had paid for it.

Holly glared at Wells. “When I can touch people without sucking their life out,” she said flatly.

Wells smiled, glancing down to her hands on the counter, once again clad in leather. “Holly, fear is almost as dangerous as you believe your gift is.”

She laughed shortly. “My ‘gift’. Right.”

“Toxic gas attack at the mall,” Caitlin announced, running in from the hall. “Barry’s already there. His comms are on, but he’s not answering me- oh no.”

“What?” Wells asked, turning away from Holly.

“I think he just got gassed,” she explained in a panic. 

“What’s happening to him?” Holly demanded, seizing his tablet.

Cisco walked to the counter and typed furiously at the computer, trying to find an answer for her. “I don’t know. His vitals are weak, but he’s definitely alive-”

“Barry?” Wells asked in the mic. ”Barry, can you hear me?”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Caitlin put in, not sounding entirely convinced herself.

The most frustrating thing about being a genius was when it couldn’t give you the answers you needed. Luckily, Barry rescued all of them from that feeling when he whooshed in, setting stray papers flying into the air, and collapsed on the counter.

“I can’t breathe,” he gasped, barely staying upright. “I can’t breathe.”

Wells ordered Cisco to get some oxygen while Caitlin and Holly dove for Barry, still desperately trying to breathe. They each pulled one of his arms over their shoulders, stumbling with him to the bed where Holly had been sleeping for the past week. They threw her rumpled blankets to the floor and laid Barry down.

“Cut me open!” He shouted, grabbing at his chest. “The poison’s still in me-”

“He brought us a sample,” Wells said in a rush, seeming more scared than Holly had ever seen him. “Caitlin, we need to do a pulmonary biopsy, extract an active portion of that gas!”

While Caitlin started talking to Barry, warning him about going in wide awake, Wells made eye contact with Holly. Her still-gloved hand was only inches from Barry’s shoulder. Wells looked like he understood that way the life she’d stolen from him was beating at her boundaries, begging to be set free and go home to him. He couldn’t know. No one knew.

There was a needle in Cisco’s hand that made Holly’s guts churn. Barry was still choking, and Caitlin looked terrified as she took the syringe. “Don’t die,” Holly watched Cisco murmur, so quiet no one heard him.

She had to do something.

Holly looked back at Wells, still watching her. For a moment, she felt the hatred rip at the insides of her ribs, begging to take his life next, but then his expression changed. He wasn’t all-powerful. Suddenly, he seemed vulnerable, desperate, scared. Like her. 

Wells nodded once at her, and the decision was made.

She tore off her gloves and threw them to the floor. She could do this. Probably.

_ Don’t die, Barry. Sorry if you do. _

The glow flared beneath her flesh, begging to be set free. Holly pressed her hands to his collar bones and waited for Caitlin’s signal.

He gasped a final time as the needle pierced his chest- and the world went dark.

_ Dirt crunched in his teeth, mingling with the blood. It seemed that every bone in his body hurt. He opened his eyes and the world was hazy and fractured. He heard children shouting; they sounded like blood-hungry wolves. When his gaze focused, he saw his own hand- small, clenched into a fist. He would’ve thought he was reliving one of his many lost fights if it weren’t for the ripped edges to his nails, bitten to the quick.  _

_ The memory was crystal clear, but it wasn’t his own. _

“He’s awake.”

Barry blinked a few times, readjusting to the world. It seemed much too bright- and breathing made his lungs feel like they were on fire.

“The Streak lives,” he heard Cisco chime in.

“You’d be dead if your lung cells didn’t regenerate so quickly,” Caitlin said solemnly from the left side of his bed. Cisco was on the right. Holly was nowhere to be seen.

He winced as he drew in another breath. “My chest feels like that one time I had a cigarette.”

Both his friends narrowed their eyes at him, and he shook his head self-deprecatingly. “Yeah, teen me lived for danger.”

“This isn’t funny,” Caitlin protested, “you could’ve-”

“I didn’t,” Barry interrupted, exchanging a meaningful look with his friend. She swallowed hard and seemed to accept his answer.

From the cortex, Wells announced, “Now that we have a sample, we’ll get to work analyzing it, figure out the makeup of the poison, maybe get a clue as to his human identity.”

“Or at least a way to stop him from turning into a mist,” Caitlin muttered.

Cisco brightened. “The Mist! Okay, that’s his name. End of discussion.”

Now at the point in the conversation where Holly should’ve butted in with a jab about his sad sense of humor, Barry felt her absence as strongly as he saw Caitlin’s presence. “Where’s Holly?”

The two exchanged a glance. :She’s… under observation,” Caitlin supplied. 

“Observation of what?” He asked, struggling to sit up.

“After we saw what she could do, we had to study her more. For our safety and hers.” Caitlin seemed uncomfortable sharing that information with him, even though her confessions about Ronnie earlier had seemed to actually take some weight off her shoulders.

Barry had almost forgotten that she was a metahuman too. “What did she do?”

Caitlin opened and shut her mouth in a manner similar to that of a fish, grasping for words. Cisco took the liberty of explaining for her. “We weren’t sure if you’d be okay after the biopsy. You heal quickly, but you’re not immortal. Holly… used her powers on you.”

“She  _ what _ ?” Barry demanded, chest throbbing. So far, when a metahuman used their abilities on him, it hadn’t ended well. He had thought they were almost friends-

“No, you don’t understand,” Cisco continued, interrupting Barry’s train of thought. “She saved your life.”

That gave Barry pause. His mind raced through a hundred questions, but settled on one. “Where is she?”

The back lab smelled slightly rancid past the quarantine, but Barry ignored it for the sake of the girl sitting on the table with machines tapped into her. One monitor behind her showed her heartbeat- significantly slower than his. Another, her cells, exchanging blue light like breath. He wondered if that was constantly happening inside her; the light, the glow, the life force, shooting back and forth between the building blocks of Holly.

“Hi,” he said nervously.

She looked over her shoulder at him, black hair spilling down her back. “You’re alive.”

He laughed softly, then grimaced. “Yeah, thanks to you.”

Holly shook her head and turned away from him again. She seemed shockingly calm for someone who’d been the deciding force over whether he lived or died. He wondered, briefly, if she’d been there before. “I save your ass and it lands me under a microscope, pricked and sampled and studied. How’s that for credit where credit’s due?” She asked bitterly.

“Sorry,” he shrugged, hoping she wasn’t truly angry with him. That was a place he never wanted to revisit.

“It’s not your fault. You weren’t even conscious when they locked me up.” She traced her finger across a dent in the steel table absently. She was so beautiful in her disinterest that he longed for her to smile again. Instead, she tapped her finger on the table, making a soft thump. “They said it was just in case I lost control again. I know they don’t mean to be, but they’re afraid. Of me.”

He focused on the easier part of that statement, which wasn’t actually much easier to address than Holly’s effect on the team. “Lose control?”

“Remember when I touched you earlier and you almost passed out?”

“Yeah.”

She pursed her lips and pulled her hand into her lap, fiddling with her fingers. “That was me. I didn’t mean to, of course, I just got frustrated and wasn’t wearing my gloves. Accidentally took a little piece of you with a touch.”

He blinked at her, stunned. “You can do that?”

Holly spun on the table to face him. “I don’t like to, but I can.”

Barry broke into a grin. “Cool. I mean, not cool that you don’t like to, but cool that you can do that kind of thing. You’re like Aphrodite or something.”

She lowered her eyebrows. “Aphrodite, the goddess of love?”

Freudian slips would be the death of him. “I meant Athena.”

“Yeah,” Holly shrugged, staring at her hands, “it’s not always as cool as that.” There was a shadow in her voice that warned him he was crossing dangerous territory. She seemed so full of secrets that he wanted to join her on the table and coax out every one of them, falling like pearls into his hands. Precious and rare and imperfect secrets. But Holly guarded those with lips tighter than any oyster, and he knew trying to force them from her would end up hurting him much worse than it did her.

Barry knew that somewhere beneath the fury there was the girl she had been before the particle accelerator exploded. He had seen her in flashes: Holly’s laugh, the way she had to keep her hands busy, the determination to help people. He just hoped that one day, she’d trust him enough to introduce him to that girl underneath.

He approached her as non-threateningly as he could, even though he was pretty sure he was as unintimidating as could be. “Yeah, my comic books lied to me. Being a superhero isn’t all fun and games.”

She snorted. “Did you really just call us superheroes?”

“We are, if you think about it,” he explained defensively. “Saving the city, protecting the weak-”

“Boosting your ego,” Holly put in, raising her eyebrow incredulously.

“Barry!” Caitlin shouted from the cortex. “We have a match!” She entered the back lab, preoccupied with her tablet. When she looked up and met Holly’s gaze, both women shifted uncomfortably. Caitlin quickly averted her eyes to her tablet. Holly rotated back around on her table to face the opposite wall.

Barry hated to see the newly-formed friendship begin to decay already. “Caitlin, let her out,” he suggested pointedly. “She’s not dangerous.”

“We aren’t saying she is.” Caitlin still couldn’t look at Holly, and that gave her away.

“Then why did you lock her up back here?” He demanded. Holly turned over her shoulder, confused expression aimed at Barry.

Caitlin bit her lip before replying. “We don’t understand what she can do, and we just have to run a few tests-”

“No, you don’t,” Holly interrupted. “These are the exact same tests you ran on me when I was out. You already knew this stuff before I kept this idiot-” she gestured to Barry- “breathing. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Caught in her deception, Caitlin’s mouth opened and shut as she grasped for a response. The truth of it was that fear was the only thing keeping Holly from helping them even more. Caitlin finally came up with, “I’m sorry, Holly, but we can’t risk you losing control of your abilities.”

“Don’t you get it?” Holly demanded, voice like a razorblade. “I didn’t lose control. I had my ‘abilities’ perfectly mastered. For the first time  _ ever _ . And what do I get for it?”

Caitlin pursed her lips. “What if you don’t do as well next time?”

“That would suck. Don’t you mean, ‘what if I happened to be near you next time’? That’s what you’re really scared of, right? It’s all well and good when I spark up the Flash, he heals fast. But you?” She took a menacing step forward. “I don’t think you can say the same.”

Barry was in front of her in half a moment with a grip on her shoulders. She was slapping him in the same amount of time. Suddenly they were thrown back into the hostility they’d harbored for each other a week ago, and the progress they had made shook at its foundation. But then, unlike the last time they’d exchanged blows, Barry didn’t consider retaliation.

“Stop it!” Caitlin shouted, and the two metahumans ended their movement. His hands were still resting on her shoulders, their eyes locked. Hers were rage-filled, his determined.

After a moment of palpable quiet, Holly spoke through gritted teeth. “I don’t want to hurt you, Dr. Snow. Forgive me.”

She seemed to take that in, but her only reply wasn’t aimed at her aggressor. “Barry, I need you to come with me,” Caitlin said in a measured tone.

He didn’t seem as inclined as usual to track down their bad guy. Instead, he nodded dismissively at Caitlin. “I’ll be there in a second.”

She took the hint. After she left the room, Barry looked back to Holly, whose gaze had followed Caitlin as she departed. She looked tired again like she did in the morning. “Hey,” he whispered, and she met his eyes. “I’ll get you out of here. They’ll understand, I promise.”

Holly seemed unconvinced. “Don’t hold your breath.”

There had been many people who had broken their vows to her, and he silently made a promise to himself, too- he wouldn’t be the next one.

“His name’s Kyle Nimbus,” Cisco explained. “Hitman- well, ex-hitman- for that crime family the cops investigated. They sold him out a few years back.”

Barry stepped forward, the glare in Nimbus’ mugshot unsettling him. “What about the woman at the mall?”

“She was the judge who convicted him,” Caitlin put forth.

“He’s going for revenge. When I ran into him at the mall, he said there was one more name on his list. If he’s targeting the people who got him thrown in jail, there’s another victim out there. Look up his case file,” he instructed Caitlin, “and see who the head detective was.”

She did as he said, but moments later, her face went slack. “Barry.”

He and Cisco both felt the change in mood and turned towards her, the tension in the room nearly palpable.

She looked up at him fearfully. “It’s Joe.”

Wells rolled in, catching onto the conversation effortlessly. “Where is he?”

“Cameras have him at Iron Heights prison,” Cisco offered. The sense of urgency in the room had affected everyone, but for some reason, Barry hadn’t moved.

“What’s wrong?” Caitlin asked, hurriedly walking towards the lab.

He shook his head. “This guy’s not just a metahuman, he knows how to fight people. How to kill them.”

“You’re faster than the speed of sound,” Cisco challenged. 

“Yeah, and Holly still managed to kick my ass.  _ Four times _ . Holly-” His eyes lit up as an idea took root in his head. "Holly." As Caitlin interrupted with her explanation of the antidote, Cisco nearly read his mind and a devilish grin appeared on his face.

When she’d pushed the syringe into his grasp, Barry presented his case. “I can bring Holly.”

In unison, Wells and Caitlin said, “No.”

“She can’t control her powers!” Caitlin protested, sounding like a broken record. A very angry broken record.

“She doesn’t need to!” Barry countered. “She doesn’t need anything but her gloves and she’ll keep me from getting killed again.”

“No, Barry,” Wells said sternly.

He turned on him with a glower. “Why, because you’re all scared of her? She saved my life.”

“She beat you up,” Cisco fired back.

“Nimbus is going to do worse than that if he gets his hands on me!”

Wells was disturbingly calm about the whole situation. “She’s reckless and impulsive. If she's ever going to be anything but a doctor terrified of her own power, she needs training. Training she won't have for a long time. Taking her out there with you could get you both killed.”

“No,” Barry said, standing his ground. “She’s the only person we have that actually stands a chance of beating Nimbus.”

“Except you!” Caitlin exclaimed.

“I’m not a fighter!” He shot back, then realized how much precious time he was losing by arguing about it with them. 

In the next ten seconds, he had put on his uniform and materialized beside Holly in the back lab. She startled slightly when he spoke.

“Feel like being a superhero?” He asked, and as soon as she had finished replying, he had scooped her up and they were running. Cisco and Caitlin and Wells were already shouting in his comms, but he ignored them. Feeling Holly’s arms around his neck helped him feel like he wasn’t sprinting to his death.

When he came to a stop in the prison visitation area, it looked like Nimbus had beaten him to the punch. Joe lay writhing and seizing on the dirty concrete floor. Barry let Holly down, but she went tumbling to the ground. He had forgotten how fast that felt to normal people- or metahumans who weren’t as fast as him. She looked up at something in the windows behind Barry, then swayed slightly before regaining her land legs and snatching the antidote.

When he looked up, he saw what Holly had been staring at. His father watched from beyond the glass with a deeply confused expression.

Barry hid his appearance even more than the mask did by shaking his face. Seeing his father struck a chord inside him, a rage and motivation deeper than anything else. There was a sadness there, too, one so intense he tried not to think about it.

He couldn’t. Not right then.

“Find him!” Holly commanded, kneeling beside Joe and administering the antidote. She took his pulse and assessed the damage after she heard Barry run.

Holly made sure that Joe was stable, then ran out into the hallway. Barry had trapped Nimbus at the end of the hallway and was dashing around him to avoid getting gassed. Half-formed and snarling, Nimbus looked like something out of a nightmare. He was lunging for Barry, so Holly took a few long strides towards him and shouted, “Hey, asshole!”

Nimbus reformed, temporarily distracted by the pretty girl insulting him from the end of the hall. Barry took the chance and smashed a fist into Nimbus’ face.

“You’re Kyle Nimbus, killer of other people’s enemies and my next victory,” she continued as he shook it off. “My mother's name is Evening Stormcipher, and I know that the date of her jury duty was the date of the trial that condemned her to death. Now, she couldn't make it tonight, but I'm a damn good replacement.” She admired the syringe in her hand, then switched her grip in case she needed a weapon. She smiled again, but it wasn’t quite real. Behind it was fear- and fatal enjoyment. “Catch me if you can!” Holly singsonged, then turned and sprinted away. Nimbus followed suit, morphing into a gas cloud again.

Barry burst through it at top speed after Holly. She was frozen mid-sprint, one arm thrown back towards him. She knew he’d follow her. He ducked under her arm and pulled her along, and the pair of them raced out to an empty road surrounded by forest.

When he put her down this time, she recovered easier, leaning on his shoulder for a second to gain her balance. She didn’t have much time to do that, though- Nimbus turned to face them just ahead.

“You’ve come to finish what the gas chamber couldn’t,” he teased.

Holly narrowed her eyes at the skinhead as Barry retaliated with some hero-complex threat. “Where the hell are your eyebrows?” She shot back before he was even done speaking.

Nimbus fixed his gaze on her, and she started walking towards him. These heroes and villains had a habit of postponing their attack until they were done delivering a monologue. “And you brought your girlfriend,” he jabbed, “how sweet. Two for one.”

“You’re so wrong,” Barry shook his head. “She is definitely not sweet.”

Nimbus laughed and began to transform again. “No one’s sweet when they’re dead.”

“Run, Holly!” Barry shouted, and he finally listened to the team again as she bolted. Nimbus pursued her, right on her heels and getting faster. 

“He can’t stay in his gas form for long,” Cisco informed him. “I really hope you’re listening, because this is going to save both of your lives.”

“I’m listening!” He assured him. Holly leapt towards him and he caught her before running again. “How do we stop him?”

“Get him tired, he’ll have to reform, and that’s when you attack,” Caitlin explained. “Is Holly okay?”

“She’s fine,” he replied, then turned to see Nimbus starting to condense into a man again. Holly saw it too and began to let go of him. He knew he’d regret it later, but he let go of her knees and swung her to her feet. By the time he’d slowed down and turned to face them, Holly was in midair and twisting her arm around Nimbus’ neck. It seemed she enjoyed headlocks.

Until Nimbus had recharged. He became gaseous and Holly fell to the concrete. She was smart, though, and scrambled to her feet to run again. However fast she was, she was no Flash, and Nimbus rapidly gained on her until Barry dashed around the mist of poison and pulled her back behind it. While Nimbus reoriented himself, realizing the girl had disappeared, Holly squeezed Barry’s shoulder and hissed, “Get him to the clearing.”

He let her down, and she rolled on the grass like a cat before running for the trees. Barry turned back to Nimbus just as the cloud swung back towards him. More chasing ensued, all culminating in the cloud slowing in the clearing Holly had pointed out. When Barry turned, there she was, held in the air with gentle time suspending her. Hair flying, legs engaged to sprint. 

Nimbus reformed, and Holly was right behind him in time to swing her bladed hand into the pressure point on his upper shoulder and neck. 

The trained assassin never stood a chance. 

“The two of you could have been killed tonight,” Caitlin scolded, Holly and Barry standing next to each other in the middle of the cortex as the team stared them down.

Cisco looked like his smile was going to split his seams, but at Wells’ expression he hid his joy.

Wells seemed strangely satisfied, meeting the pair of them with a vague smile as Caitlin raged on them. They did make quite a duo; Holly’s vengeful presence against Barry’s kind one, matching heights, one dark-eyed and the other light. Opposite sides of the same coin, perhaps, he thought to himself. Holly was more than revenge and more than intelligence- she had the potential to become invaluable, as she’d shown all of them that night.

“Never do that again,” Caitlin finished. Barry looked like a scolded six-year-old. Holly seemed completely unfazed.

“Actually, Dr. Snow,” Wells interjected, “I think they might be onto something.”

The two of them turned to him at the same moment.

“Whoa,” Holly said, beginning to catch on. “I’m nobody’s sidekick.”

“You’re right,” he agreed, “you’re not.” He looked to Barry, still lost. “I think, at least until Holly can teach you to fight for yourself, you’re going to need her help.”

Caitlin and Cisco’s eyes were wide for very different reasons. Holly and Barry glanced towards each other, then back to Wells.

“What are you saying?” Barry asked.

Wells smirked, appearing quite proud of himself. “Cisco, I think Holly’s going to need one of your monikers,” he began. “The Flash has earned himself a partner.”


	7. occupational hazard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> also known as: all hail the vac-gina

“Wait, what?!” Barry exclaimed, at the same time Cisco clapped his hands together and thanked the lord. Holly’s eyes widened and she stared at Wells as if he’d sprouted a bushy tail.

“No,” Caitlin exclaimed, “Dr. Wells, they’re not even friends! How can they possibly be partners if they can’t hold a conversation without someone trying to hit someone?”

Barry and Holly were both scowling at Caitlin now. “I think I just got called out,” Holly muttered.

“They’re worth more together than against each other, and Barry was right- the blue man had him beat, easy,” Cisco put in, his eyes flashing with ideas. He set his sights on Holly like she was a new project. “Dude, I have so much to do.”

“Guys, we’re standing right here,” Barry shouted, silencing the cacophony. When Cisco had ceased bouncing on his toes and Caitlin had reluctantly stopped to listen to him, he presented his case to Caitlin. “Before we left you were fighting tooth and nail not to let us go, and now you think we should be partners?”

Caitlin shifted uncomfortably, unprepared for being put on the spot. “I think…” She hesitated, and everyone in the room could feel the precarious words perched at the tip of her tongue. “If you both insist on risking your lives, and if we want to keep you from losing them, you need each other. At least for now.”

"So we're each other's training wheels?" Holly scoffed in disbelief. “Dr. Wells?”

Wells was still smirking. “I agree. You proved that you were onto something, and I want to keep you- both of you-” he looked pointedly at Holly- “safe. I think you can do that for each other out in the field better than we can, stuck back here behind computers. I believe that this city needs you both.”

Cisco started grinning again.

“But it’s going to take a lot of training. Holly has to learn to use her abilities in the right way, and Barry has to adjust to running with double the weight,” she continued.

“Styx!” Cisco suggested, but once again received glares in place of an answer. 

"You're asking for her to get a bad nickname," Caitlin muttered. "'Look, there goes Styx. Go, Barry, fetch!'"

He pouted slightly and resolved to think of a better name.

Holly was oddly silent, eyes unfocused as she thought. “What about my other job?” She asked abruptly. “I mean, I’ve got about four patients who’ve been shoved off to my trainees this past week. I need to get back to work. And, no offense to Mr. Faster-than-a-speeding-bullet here, but I don’t think being a superhero pays that well.”

“None taken,” Barry replied quietly, not really to anyone in particular. “You’re a doctor,” he said in badly concealed awe.

Holly squinted at him, temporarily distracted. “You knew that.”

“Oh yeah.”

“It’s not up for discussion,” Wells decided.

Caitlin watched as he and Holly shared a look that seemed deceive that assurance, but it faded so quickly that she wondered if she’d even seen it at all.

Wells turned his eyes on Cisco, already expecting his jubilance. “You have plenty to do, don’t you, Mr. Ramon?”

“Oh, yes, I do,” he nodded with the widest smile Holly thought she’d ever seen. He looked like her brother when her parents gave him a BMX for his eleventh birthday. Just when she had begun to doubt her six-year-old memory, Cisco proved her wrong.

The day passed mostly without consequence, save for Cisco's interjections of a name. Minutes after Caitlin had pried Cisco away from his computer and convinced him to go home, Holly emerged from the back lab and approached Wells. For once, she seemed neither admiring nor afraid. “I expect you have questions,” Wells presumed, lacing his fingers.

“Not exactly,” Holly said, “just a deal.”

He leaned forward slightly. “I’m interested.”

She pulled her phone out of her bag that he only then noticed was slung over her shoulder. After a few moments of tapping, she held it out towards him bearing a conversation in text messages- well, it wasn’t exactly a conversation. The sender, a certain Dr. Cross, had submitted a series of five pictures over the last few days. Each was a selfie of a man with quiffed black hair and a patient. Both were giving a thumbs-up, wishing Holly to feel better. She had never replied. Wells scrolled through the photos, then handed her phone back to her as she explained. “That’s my partner resident, Ashton. He’s been handling my patients for the past few days while I’ve been here.”

“He seems like a good young man.”

“He is. Fantastic, actually. And I’d like to get back to him and my day job,” she said, and he got the sense that it wasn’t exactly an offer but a demand. “In return, I’ll be your little Wondergirl whenever you need me to be, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my real job.”

Wells smiled, finally appearing to see Holly as his equal rather than a subordinate. She had a steely sharpness in her eyes that vaguely reminded him of Hartley. Holly knew what she wanted, what she needed, the difference between them, and how to get both. “You’re a very dedicated young woman, Dr. Stormcipher.”

He was the next person to see her smile. This time it held less laughter; instead, he saw something that made him doubt her likeness to Hartley- a shade of compassion. “You said this city needed me.” She looked at the pictures on her phone again with the shadow of that smile. “Well, so do they.”

He smiled, too, then shook his head in resignation. “It seems you’ve proved your case. Will we see you around here tomorrow?”

Holly shrugged. “Caitlin’s got my number. Shoot me a text if you need me, I’ll be here in a flash-” She bit back another smile at her own phrasing. “Well, you know what I mean.”

As she turned and left, Wells continued smiling.

She was halfway into the elevator when Cisco called, "I like Wondergirl."

"What?" She asked quizzically, making a face as he rounded the corner.

"What you said to Dr. Wells," he clarified. "Wondergirl. I like it."

Holly rolled her eyes as the doors pinged. "Not sold, Cisco."

He grinned at her, not a care in the world. "I _will_ make you a hero, Holliday Stormcipher."

"Just Holly."

And the next day after work, the training began.

The fifth time he hit the mats, Barry didn’t have any motivation to get up again. He’d apparently romanticized his fights with the blue man by remembering them, because getting whooped by Holly- no powers allowed- wasn’t nearly as fun as he thought it would be.

She nudged him with one sneaker-clad foot. “Don’t tell me you’re tired already.”

“Are you kidding?” He grunted, opening one eye. “I’ve been tired since the first time you punched me in the throat.”

Holly shrugged. “Shouldn’t have left yourself open like that. How was I supposed to resist?”

“By being a nice, merciful, non-painful human being,” he deadpanned, sitting up. It felt like he’d been attacked by an angry mob- and he knew what that was like through experience.

Holly squatted to his level, her only sign of fatigue the glistening sheen of sweat on her shoulders. “We’re not human beings anymore, remember?”

“I remember,” he groaned.

She stood up again, offering him her hand. He took it gratefully and got to his feet. “How’d you learn to do all this stuff, anyway?”

Holly tightened the velcro on her gloves as she replied. “Got put in taekwondo when I was eleven. Discovered I was pretty good at it, got a black belt by the time I was fourteen. Then I tried karate. And judo. And jiu jitsu.”

Barry leaned his head back, trying to catch his breath before she threw the first punch. She hadn’t given him fair warning once so far, claiming that he wouldn’t get a ‘ready set go’ when stopping a bank robbery. “I took a year of karate when I was seven.”

“No wonder you’re so awful,” she jabbed.

“Hey, I can still go three miles in the time it takes you to run a hundred meters.”

Holly finished adjusting her gloves and settled into her hip. “Is that so?”

Her trick worked. A glimmer of electricity flashed through his eyes and he prepared to run. He began to sprint, but lasted hardly a second before feeling Holly’s fist slam into his stomach. Before time resumed its normal pace, he studied her stance, one arm wrapped around her stomach to brace for the impact of her elbow after she hit him, crouched behind her arm to push herself forward against his velocity.

However she did it, it worked. He dropped to his knees and coughed, keeled over as he tried to recover. Holly put a hand on his head and lifted it to look him in the face. For a moment, he thought he saw what looked like concern in her eyes, but it flickered away. “Try not to be so obvious. It’s kind of pathetic.”

Barry coughed again, tilting his head back down. “Obvious?” He forced out, struggling to stand up. This time, though, he took a few steps back so she knew he wasn’t fighting her again.

“I mean, your eyes literally pulled a Furby. It’s hard to get any more conspicuous than that.” She started circling him absently. “And on top of that, you always tense your shoulders right before you go. Glowing eyes, tightened shoulders, might as well put up a Facebook status:  _ Hey! I’m about to run at superhuman speeds, make sure you’re ready to deck me when I do! _ ”

Holly was having way too much beating him up.

He rested his hands on his hips. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping me get better?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be good at this?” She countered. “Look, before I turn your servant ass into a speedster Cinderella with great technique, you’ve got to understand that relying on being fast isn’t always going to keep you alive.”

“Oh, I understand,” he assured her breathlessly.

She had made a full revolution around him. “Prove it.”

“Now?”

“Now.” She put her fists up. “Your turn to go first. Try to hit me.”

Barry blinked a few times in surprise, his body aching. And yet some deeper part of him was whispering for him to do it, throw a punch, take her down. “Since when are taking turns?”

“Since now. Hit me.”

He took a deep breath and lifted his fists again. The same fire he felt that begged him to fight burned in Holly’s eyes too. Maybe, one day, he could make fighting look like dancing the way she did.

Today was not that day.

For the eighth time, Barry found himself beaten. Again he found himself flat on the mat, this time facedown with Holly sitting on him, pinning his arm back painfully. She’d obviously paid him back for breaking their first rule- no using powers- and he hadn’t enjoyed it. Her weight shifted and released.

For the first time, Holly joined him on the floor. Her face was a little bit red now, and it provided him with a bit of dignity that she’d gotten tired too. She lay on her back, eyes closed and lips parted slightly as she caught her breath. Tendrils of black hair were stuck to her forehead with sweat. He was astounded at how she still looked like a war goddess after a brawl like that. Her chest rose and fell heavily, her hands folded on her ribs. After a few moments, her lips curled at the corners. “What are you looking at?”

It struck Barry that he was still staring, but there wasn’t exactly a point in turning away after she had caught him. He kept at it. “You.”

The smile grew. “Why?”

“You made beating me look easy.”

She snorted softly and broke into a real smile. “Because it is.” She opened her eyes and looked over at him. The light shone on her eyes in such a way that he realized they weren’t actually brown, but a deep, dark green.

He rolled his eyes and rolled over to face the ceiling. Looking at her for too long made his chest ache. “You’re the first to complain.”

“Because you lock all the other ones up,” she shot back.

They laid in silence for a few moments, both recovering. He felt his bruised ribs hurting less with every breath. Beside him, Holly sighed softly, and he knew it would make the shining sweat on her chest and neck glisten. He didn’t look, but he did speak.

“Why did you kiss me at the museum that first time?”

Barry felt Holly tense slightly, just for a moment, before returning to her usual state of tongue-lashing apathy. “Because you were there, and I was there, and I was angry. And when a crossdressing doctor-by-day, vigilante-by-night, totally badass woman’s faced with someone like you who gets her hurt for the first time in a long time, what’s she to do but make you question your sexuality?” The way she spoke made the words even funnier, drops of vitriol trickling from pink, bitten lips. She wasn’t trying to make him laugh, but she succeeded anyway. She shot him a sharp glare and he quieted. After she was sure he wouldn’t interrupt her again, she continued. “Because I could, and merely beating a few thugs’ heads together doesn’t always make me feel like I’m really doing  _ something _ .”

“You do all that,” he gestured to the world above, “for the adrenalin rush?”

The question gave her more pause than he’d expected for it to. She rolled onto her side to face him, and he mirrored the action. “You’ve saved people. You’ve almost died. You’ve stared down the barrel of a gun. Why do either of us do what we do?”

He began to understand why she had hesitated.

“We do it because we have the power to. Pun not intended.” Her gaze suddenly became soft, like summer moss on an elm tree instead of the broken beer bottles it usually reminded him of. “I can do something that no one else can do. Something  _ no one  _ should be able to do. And there’s people who would tell me that’s all I’m worth now. Worth… life and death. I have-”

Cisco, as usual, had the worst possible timing. “Hey, you two, car robbery on Eastern Place.”

Barry hesitated. There was a huge likelihood that Holly wouldn’t open to him again for who knows how long. But there were crimes to stop and people to save. He heard her voice again, telling him they did what they did because they had the power to do it, and he ran anyway.

After he had gone, leaving Holly laying there, Cisco asked, “I interrupted something, didn’t I?”

Holly rolled over her shoulders and onto her feet. She still seemed breathless, even though her chest now rose and fell at a normal pace. “Nothing heartbreakingly important,” she replied as she started up the stairs.

Cisco took in the mats, bearing little to no sign of the pair of them having just been there except the rapidly evaporating sweat stains.

She returned to work an hour later.

Ashton was, predictably, way too excited to see her again.

“Holly!” He chirped, nearly running into her as he rounded a corner. “Uh- hi! How are you?”

Holly rolled her eyes, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder, She’d already gathered her hair into a ponytail, spritzed with dry shampoo to hide her morning’s activities, and a simple change of clothes had her prepared for a day at her real job. “I’m okay. Actually got to meet Harrison Wells, believe it or not.”

“Wait,  _ the  _ Harrison Wells?” Ashton asked, stopping in his tracks. “The Harrison Wells who nearly blew up Central City about a year ago?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, him.”

Ashton closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He pulled her into a short side hallway. “I told them you were gone on a family emergency.” He glanced around conspiratorially before asking, “Where were you really?”

Holly smiled a bit. “You’d never believe me if I told you.”

“I believed you when you nearly killed me during-”

“Point taken,” Holly cut him off. She mimicked his suspicious glance and raised on her toes to whisper in his ear, “I may or may not have met the guy who they call the Flash.”

Ashton jerked away so quickly that anyone watching would’ve thought she’d bitten him. And perhaps her words had. He glanced around a few times, and Holly took a moment to admire his perfect jawline as he turned his head. He looked back at her and she realized once again that he was no less jaw-droppingly attractive from this angle. “You know who he is?”

“Yeah, he’s not as amazing without the mask on. Kind of a geek, actually.” Holly shrugged, briefly recalling the sting in her wrist after slamming her fist into his stomach. She smiled slightly. “And also fun to smack around.”

“Who is he? Do we know him? Is he human? Is he smarter than me?” Ashton demanded.

Holly paused, counting the questions off on her fingers. “I can’t tell you, no, he’s like me, and probably not.”

Ashton ran a hand through his dark hair, mussing the blond section at the front. “Like you, as in…?”

“Struck by lightning, apparently,” she shrugged.

“That’s some special lightning.”

She held up her hands, one shielding the other from public view, and let her fingers flare blue. “You think?”

Ashton’s brown eyes widened, and he quickly forced her hand closed with his own as she extinguished the light. “Don’t do that here, someone’s going to see you!” He was one of the two people besides Holly who knew about her unusual skills- it was sort of hard not to tell the truth after an unfortunate incident that had to do with her accidental use of her abilities while the two of them were entangled in a circumstance that involved an indecent absence of clothes. It was a difficult situation to get out of, but that hadn’t stopped them from repeating it. Multiple times.

Holly was unfazed. “Come on, Ash, if anyone was going to catch me they would have done it already. People want to believe the world they understand is all the world there is.”

“Don’t call me Ash,” he muttered reflexively. He opened his mouth to say more, but both their pagers went off at the same time and they reached for their back pockets.

He read his aloud. “I’m needed in Psych.”

“Me in ICU,” Holly replied.

Ashton smirked as he backtracked away. “Tonight?”

“Tonight,” she confirmed. He turned the corner and she reminded him of the most important rule- “Bring food!”

“Got it!”

It turned out Holly’s newest patient- a red-haired girl named Isla who’d been in critical condition after a car accident- was awake. She had been very lucky to survive after a nearly collapsed lung and significant brain swelling. She was twenty-nine, just older than Holly herself, and had apparently woken up demanding beignets from Cafe du Monde.

When Holly entered her room, Isla let out a sigh of relief, then launched into a coughing fit.

“Take it slow, ma’am,” Holly advised her, left hand holding out a glass of water while the right one unclipped the board of papers from the end of the bed. “I’m Dr. Stormcipher.”

Isla took a few sips of the water, then smiled in embarrassment. “I was going to thank god for seeing a woman who takes care of herself in here. Half of these nurses have split ends that make me hurt worse than the broken ribs.”

Holly snorted good-naturedly. “I’m sure their hair takes a backseat to the duty of saving your life.”

“I suppose,” Isla relented, settling back into her bed. Her crimson hair spread out around her head like a halo. “What’s your name?”

“Holly.”

“Oh, I love that. Dangerous name for a dangerous woman,” Isla mused.

Holly tensed a little as she took down the blood pressure device. “How am I dangerous?”

Isla offered her arm. “Well, I don’t pretend to know you, but you’ve got the face of a girl who takes no shit.”

Forgetting her own rules for a moment, Holly smiled. “You might know me better than you think.”

Isla shared the grin. “It’s in your eyes.”

Holly measured out the statistics and jotted them down in messy handwriting, developed through years of med school. “How’s Holly a dangerous name?”

“Well, holly’s a poisonous plant. I’m a botanist,” Isla explained. “You’ve got spiny edges just like those leaves.”

Holly raised an eyebrow as she prepared a syringe. “Exactly how much morphine are you on again?”

Isla studied her fingers, her nails somehow still impeccably painted coral. Holly wondered if they’d ever have met if Isla’s accident had never happened. If she’d learned anything from working here, it had been that the best blessings were usually disguised. “Not as much as you think I am.”

Inserting the needle into Isla’s IV, Holly nodded accommodatingly. “Of course.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Nope.”

Isla began to laugh, then the giggles decayed into coughing again.

“Water,” Holly commanded, and Isla gratefully seized the glass and drank her fill.

After she dried her lips, she frowned at the absence of color left on them. Judging by the stained edges of her mouth, she’d been wearing a bright shade of peach before being hospitalized. “You sound like my mother.”

“In here, I’m the closest you’ve got.”

Isla scowled. “I hate my mother.”

“Me too.”

She puffed her cheeks out, sighing slowly. “I haven’t gone to a family gathering in over a decade,” she reminisced. “A house full of irritated gingers never seemed very homey to me.”

Holly hummed softly, preoccupied with the readings on her blood oxygen levels. A bit lower than usual, even after the lung procedure. Isla was still talking, something about her mother and a hairless cat. She’d have to ask Jameson to-

“What about you?” Isla interrupted. “What evils has your mom committed?”

Holly felt the ground shift beneath her feet.

_ “Mommy, I can’t find my tooth!” _

_ A woman with a sleek brown ponytail glanced into the bathroom, where a girl with scabbed knees and elbows stood on her tiptoes and peered into the mirror. She was barely tall enough to see the gaping hole where one of her front teeth had been an hour before. Six years old. _

_ The woman frowned, green eyes sharpening. “Where did you last see it?” _

_ “In my mouth,” the child replied, though through her prying fingers it sounded more like, ‘In mu mouf’. _

_ “And where did it go after that?” _

_ The little girl gingerly poked the gap, which was bleeding profusely. Instead of terror etched onto her chubby features, there was interest. “Out.” _

_ The woman sighed impatiently. “Did you pull it out?” _

_ “Yeth,” she admitted unabashedly. _

_ “Picture day is tomorrow, Holly, what were you thinking?” The woman- her mother- stormed into the bathroom and yanked Holly’s hands away from her mouth. “Do you want everyone in the world to see you without a tooth forever?” _

_ Holly frowned. “Forever?” _

_ “Yes,” her mother confirmed, only frustration showing on her face. “The whole world will see this picture and wonder why that dumb little girl decided to pull out her tooth right before picture day.” _

_ Holly felt her own eyes grow wide with confusion and more than a little fear. “Am I dumb?” _

“Dr. Stormcipher?” Isla interrupted, a tone of concern in her usually bubbly voice.

Holly blinked a few times, shaking off her trance. “Sorry?”

Isla glanced pointedly at Holly’s right hand.

_ No. _

She reluctantly turned her gaze onto her hand, which was, sure enough, blazing in an aura of blue-violet flares. And Isla was seeing it too.

_ No, no, no. _

“Um- I’m sorry,” Holly stammered, extinguishing the light.

It still pushed at the inside of her skin, screaming. Stolen.

“I’ll be right back,” she murmured, dropping her clipboard on the end of the bed as she stumbled away. She thought she heard Isla calling after her, but the roaring in her ears kept her from being too sure.

The room was spinning like a child’s top- like a neon green plastic toy top, whizzing about its axis on a cherry wood desk, falling, shattering, two boys shouting and Holly hid and hoped and cried- as she stumbled out of it. For some reason she couldn’t remember anything other than death, death, someone’s life pouring out of them so willingly and into her. She didn’t mean to, she didn’t want to, she didn’t want to watch as she developed a list of her dead.

Holly didn’t have a choice, she never had a choice, hadn’t had a choice since the day there was a red dress and then no red dress and a headache and sheets that didn’t make up for anything and there were no apologies, never apologies, and she would never have a choice again. Never saving, just killing, never choosing, never sorry.

There was white. There was a floor cold as the air that clothed her on December 2nd at ten in the morning. Ten thirteen exactly.

Someone else shouted her name.

All she wore was that air. No red dress. Not anymore.

“Holly!”

Red poison. Leaves that pricked fingers. Red fingers, poison leaves. Plants with fingers for leaves and girls spitting red berries onto white sheets.

She smelled something warm and musky and more white- no, that wasn’t a smell, that was the other thing, the eyes thing-

Ashton. She knew Ashton.

“Hey, hey,” he whispered urgently. “You’re not okay, I’m taking you home. That’s okay, right? No punching?”

Holly must have given him something that sounded like an answer, because he scooped her up like she weighed nothing and then there was a car, his car. She briefly remembered a conversation- it might have been him, might not have been, might have been some story- where someone was complaining about the size of someone’s car. Hers. His. Theirs. No one’s.

“Sleep, Holly.”

Did she say that? Maybe not.

Sheets. Dark.

“Sleep.”

Apparently, Ashton thought ‘home’ meant ‘his apartment’. Holly woke up a few hours later, the sun orange through his blinds. Her phone rested on the table beside the bed. Her body felt intact, but her mind ached. Something had snapped in her head when she’d been with Isla. Something had gone so intensely wrong inside her and-

Stop.

Holly took a deep breath, clearing her mind. Her tennis shoes rested at the end of the bed, and she focused on them until she felt her heartbeat slow. When it did, she reached for her phone and found a message from Ashton, promising to be home at seven with food.

She ran a hand through her hair and rolled out of bed, resolving to watch some TV and calm down from whatever had happened at the hospital earlier. Her main goal was to forget how it felt, and after two episodes of Jane the Virgin watched from Ashton’s Netflix, it seemed to work.

The key turned in the lock, and Holly perked up when Ashton entered with an armful of food. He was the only person she’d ever met who was able to make navy blue scrubs look hot.

“You brought me Yorks,” she marveled, leaping up from the couch and running towards him with more spring in her step than he’d seen since the accident. Well, except that time when she got promoted to head of lab techs right out of college. He remembered the first time someone called her “mom”, and he remembered the way she nearly knocked over a table.

She plucked a silver-wrapped package from his armful of food and pranced back over to the couch. Not just okay, but happy. That was new.

“You’re feeling better,” he observed, and Holly’s only answer was to bite her York and moan. Ashton rolled his eyes and headed towards the kitchen. “That’s my job.”

“You’ve been slacking,” she shot back through a mouthful of peppermint and chocolate. 

“You’ve been chasing death.”

There was a brief pause- probably Holly swallowing- and then, “Fair enough.”

Ashton began to laugh and reentered the living room. Holly was sprawled out again, hair spilling out of her ponytail across her face. Her eyes shone in the light of the television, and the dim glow of sunset had faded to the haze of twilight through the window.

Holly’s arms lay folded across her chest. The York wrapper gleamed in one hand. The shadows of her collarbones struck a harmony with the soft curve of her chest, the same contrast appearing between her jawline and her cheeks.

She abruptly kicked the edge of the table. It had to hurt, but she didn’t flinch, and Ashton was too preoccupied with the distance between her knees to really ask.

“Are you just going to stand there or are you going to do something about it?” Holly asked, breaking him from his trance.

“About what?”

“About me,” she smirked.

There was a rapid removal of clothes- again. This time she managed not to use her powers. And it was just as much fun as it had been the past dozen times.

“See, the term ‘fuckbuddies’ makes it sound like we’re only buddies for the fucking, and we’re not. Friends with benefits makes us sound like the benefits aren’t as awesome as they are. So that’s why I propose Option C,” Ashton explained.

“Option C?” Holly asked, massaging her own shoulder.

He rolled over, and she mimicked him. His brown eyes matched hers with intensity, but outweighed her humor. “I propose ‘sexcapaders’.”

Holly snorted, then launched into a full-on laugh. Laying down, she began making noises that sounded like goose honks, and that only made her laugh harder. “Sexcapaders?”

“Really good sex and even better adventures,” Ashton continued defensively, beginning to laugh himself. “We go on sexcapades.”

When she finally regained control of herself, she sat up, the sheet wrapped loosely around her shoulders. She didn’t have any other clothes on- Ashton was suddenly reminded of her hardly coherent murmurings in the car earlier, and felt obligated to ask, “You’re okay, right?”

Holly smiled appreciatively. “I’m okay. Thanks to you.” She poked him in the side and he flinched away sniggering, which set her off all over again. She pulled the chocolate-colored sheet with her as she flopped over onto his shoulder, tucking her ice-cold toes under his thigh. “Never get a girlfriend, you dork.”

“Never get a boyfriend, Ilex.”

She looked up at him, befuddled. “The sex is that good?”

“You’re that good,” he replied sincerely.

Sincerity rarely worked for Holly, and he expected the eye roll before it even began. “Shut up.”

As she settled into her sleeping position and her breaths became slow and even, Ashton stayed awake. It was his turn to be the protector for once.


	8. hell froze over

“Frostbite?”

Caitlin buzzed around the cortex with her tablet in hand, Barry groaning periodically from Holly’s old bed at the head of the room. 

“Caitlin tried to explain it in better detail, but I still don’t understand why it made his skin feel like a plank of wood.” Cisco had finally seemed to calm down around Holly- except for the occasional comment behind her back regarding her attractiveness after she rattled off some scientific explanation.

She approached Barry, somehow making scrubs look like battle armor. “Third degree frostbite. All of the muscles, tendons, blood vessels, and nerves in the affected area literally freeze. The skin turns hard, use is lost temporarily, and in some cases, permanently.” She bent at the knees and waist to get at eye level with his injury, narrowing her eyes. “The involved area appears deep purple or red with blisters that are usually filled with blood, like that. This kind of severe frostbite could easily result in the loss of fingers and toes. It can take several months to determine how much damage has actually been done by the freezing process.”

A scientific explanation like that.

“Why does that never get less hot?” Cisco murmured. Holly didn’t react, but Caitlin shot him a sharp glare.

“I thought he had hyper healing?” Felicity challenged. Holly turned towards her, momentarily considering introducing herself, but Felicity shook her head urgently and they agreed to follow niceties later. 

“It’s been slowed,” Cisco replied in her wake.

“If your cells weren’t regenerating at the rate they are, your blood vessels would have frozen solid and the nerve damage would have been permanent.” Caitlin’s voice shook slightly, concern making her usual scientific balance offset. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Snart wasn't another meta-human. He has some kind of gun. It froze things, slowed me down.” The next sentence was held back just milliseconds too long for it have been anything less than catastrophic in Barry’s opinion. The room held its breath. “Enough that I wasn't in time to save someone.”

Holly wondered if he would’ve made it this far if she’d been the fast one and he’d gotten her curse. She’d never really lived up to saving people.

Caitlin tapped on her tablet for a moment while Holly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. No one saw her. “According to his record, Snart didn’t even bother to finish high school, so how did he build a handheld high-tech snow machine?”

“S.T.A.R. labs built the cold gun,” Dr. Wells said evenly.

“Dr. Wells and Caitlin had nothing to do with this,” Cisco muttered shamefully. “I built the gun.”

Which, of course, went over like a ton of proverbial bricks.

“You did? Why?” Barry demanded.

Cisco couldn’t meet his eyes, instead focusing on the minute scuffs on the linoleum. “Because speed and cold are opposites.” Barry narrowed his eyes as Cisco continued. “Temperature is measured by how quickly the atoms of something are oscillating. The faster they are, the hotter it is, and when they’re colder, they’re slower on the atomic scale.” He dared to look Barry in the eyes with his final statement. “When there’s no movement at all, it’s called absolute zero.”

Barry nodded slightly. “Yeah?”

“I designed a compact cryo-engine to achieve absolute zero.” Cisco’s bravery ran out, and his gaze darted away again. 

The next part was forming in the minds of the surrounding scientists already. Once again, words waited just a moment too long, and everyone knew before they were even spoken that they were shaking the speaker’s earth. “I built it to stop you.”

Barry didn’t utter a word. Cisco’s tone became almost pleading. “I didn’t know who you were then, Barry-” he stumbled a bit, then regained his point. “I mean, what if you turned out to be some psycho, like Mardon or Nimbus?”

_ Or me _ , Holly thought briefly, before being drawn out of her thoughts by Barry’s sudden fury. 

“But I didn’t, did I?” He demanded.

She’d never seen him angry, and for the first time the Flash almost became human before her eyes. Humans got angry and threw fits. Humans didn’t listen to logic. Maybe Barry needed more pissing off. It could be good for him- if he and Holly were as polarized as they seemed, light and dark, smiling and scowling, fast and furious, then maybe rage would do wonders for him. Then again, maybe that’s where he’d turn into another villain.

Sounding heartbreakingly betrayed, Barry finished one of his silly monologues. “I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends, Barry,” Cisco put forth hopefully.

Holly couldn’t help but think that he didn’t even sound like he believed himself.

“I mean, if you would have just told me, I could have been prepared!” He paused, a flicker of honest guilt in his eyes. “But instead, someone died tonight.”

“And I have to live with that-”

“No, Cisco,” Barry interrupted. He seemed completely unaffected by the attention of everyone in the room. “We all do.”

 

Holly had some paperwork to fill out, so she opted to hang around the elevators near the front of the lab while she worked. It was cleaner than home and less distracting than Ashton’s place, anyway.

It felt like years later when she finally reached the end of her packet. When she glanced down at the time, she realized how long she had been there- it was nearing midnight. A soft ache pulsed in her temples. Residual headache from staring at the papers for too long. The soft tapping of nice pumps on a cold floor woke Holly from her near-trance. She looked up to see the blonde girl from earlier coming down the hall towards her.

“Hi,” she said, her voice tired, and Holly shifted her papers to the little desk she’d brought with her so she could stand. 

“Hey.”

The blonde woman slowed her pace as she approached Holly, and she wondered how much Cisco had told her. “I’m Felicity, one of Barry’s friends. Sort of,” she offered.

“I’m Holly, resident protector of the Flash,” she replied with a half-smile.

Felicity laughed, part of a joke Holly wasn’t in on. “Aren’t we all.”

Eleven twenty-five. Holly frowned and asked, “It’s late, why are you still up here?”

“Long story,” Felicity said, dodging the question. “I’m headed back to my hotel, after what feels like twenty years. I could ask you the same thing, though.”

Holly stood, cramming her stack of papers into her bag. “Had some work to do. Didn’t really feel like going home.”

“I’ll walk out with you?” Felicity offered, and Holly nodded appreciatively.

“Sure.”

The two women looked like night and day beside each other, but they soon discovered that they spoke the same language. “You talked about frostbite earlier like you were pretty familiar with it,” Felicity began, “and I was just wondering where you got that expertise.”

Holly let out a breathy laugh. “Well, I’m a doctor- specialty in anesthesiology- and I grew up smack in the middle of Nebraska. Frostbite was kind of like a seventh family member around my house.”

“A seventh?”

Oops.

Holly shrugged. “I have some brothers.”

Sensing that she’d stumbled upon a sensitive topic, Felicity backed off. “Yeah, it was just me and my mom when I was a kid. Kind of lonely.”

Holly was quiet as the elevator doors closed. Felicity studied her expression; although she was closed off, she had learned to see through a blank stare. Something was grating on Holly. “Are you okay?”

The black-haired girl laughed dryly, and by the masked surprise in her voice, Felicity wondered if she had anyone to care about her. It was a simple question, yet Holly acted as if she hadn’t been asked it in a long time. “Yeah, on my terms.”

“What about on someone else’s?” Felicity countered.

The other woman suddenly looked exhausted as she confessed, “Probably not.”

While Holly had been at work, Felicity had sort of taken her place at the lab. Having both of them in the same building seemed like overkill. But while they shared scientific knowledge, Felicity had gathered that she and Holly were almost as polarized as could be on every other front. Felicity’s cheer and curiosity seemed to catch Cisco and Caitlin off guard, so she’d figured that Holly was a much more sharp-tongued source of information.

“Cisco mentioned that you were like Barry, does that mean you’re..?” Felicity inquired, leaving the end of the question open. 

“A speedster? No,” Holly confirmed. “Freaky? Yes.” She turned to her, a hint of excitement in her dark eyes. “If I show you, will you freak out?”

“Only if it’s worthy of freaking out about- and, I warn you, I’m prone to freaking out.” She seemed to mirror Holly’s rising excitement.

Usually, Holly would have balked at the idea of showing a near-stranger her abilities, but there was something about Felicity that intrigued her- she might be able to understand the full extent of her power.

“Okay,” Holly murmured, holding up a hand. Felicity watched it expectantly, and she wasn’t disappointed. Moments later, a blue-violet light glimmered beneath her cappuccino-colored skin, then flared up from her fingertips. Felicity let out a short cry of surprise, jerking back, and Holly closed her fist to hide the fading glow. “Freaky, right?”

“Freaky,” Felicity confirmed. “How did you learn to do that?”

Holly shoved her gloved hands back in the pockets of her jacket. “Same thing that turned Barry into the Roadrunner made me a human AED.”

“Why is it… indigo?” Felicity asked, the initial fear fading from her voice as it was replaced by interest. “Do you have to touch people to do it? How does it feel from your end?”

Holly bit her lip, waiting for Felicity to come around to the realization she’d already reached. She stopped bouncing as she asked questions. The elevator door opened and Felicity was looking at where Holly had tucked her hands into her jacket. “You wear gloves.”

“I can’t control it,” Holly said flatly. “I touch someone and-” she snapped her fingers- “dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Felicity whispered, and Holly was unprepared for her sincerity.

She shrugged uncomfortably. “You get used to it after ten months. And it doesn’t happen with every touch. Just  _ any  _ touch.”

The two stepped out of the elevator and began to part ways, Felicity to catch a cab and Holly to her car. Before departing, Felicity turned to Holly and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know it’s gotta be hard, having the power you do, but not trusting the people in there only makes it harder. They can help you, but you have to let them.”

Holly nodded solemnly. She remembered Wells, nodding at her to save Barry, and the way it felt to have turned around and helped someone for once instead of hurting them. Of course, they’d locked her up in the back lab as a reward, but it hadn’t made seeing him not dead any less satisfying. She considered doing that again- for once, her abilities seemed almost bearable.

If only she’d known how to give life back before…

She shook off that thought and smiled slightly at her companion. “Bye, Felicity.”

“See you tomorrow, Holly.”

 

“Is he really going to make me dress up like that?” Holly asked, arms crossed as she faced the Flash suit at the front of the cortex.

Caitlin chuckled. “Well, he’s certainly going to try.”

She studied the leather-like red fabric the suit was constructed out of for a few moments more, then shrugged. “I hope he at least makes it blue. That’s my favorite color.”

“Mine too,” Caitlin smiled. Holly turned back to her and approached the desk, looking anything but superhuman in deep green scrubs and a ponytail. The end of it danced between her shoulder blades, and Caitlin took a moment to wonder how she’d managed to tuck all that hair into a hood. Or convince all of them that she was a man, for that matter; Holly wasn’t exactly built like a guy. She stood at almost six feet, mere inches shorter than Barry, but her soft curves and long eyelashes made it hard to ever see her as anything but a strikingly beautiful woman.

Somehow, though, she’d fooled them into thinking otherwise for months. 

“I thought you had work today,” Caitlin said.

Holly picked up a tablet, and Caitlin noticed with a touch of concern that her hands were bare. She unlocked the tablet and opened the scan of the cold gun, absently studying it as she replied, “I did. I’m headed home as soon as I’m done here. There was something nagging at me about this gun.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Caitlin asked.

Holly bit her lip and shook her head. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I know there’s something about this thing that isn’t normal.”

“Aside from the fact that it shoots ice?”

Holly snorted. “Yeah, aside from that.”

Caitlin studied Holly. She seemed as at ease as she’d ever been, but some part of her still remained on red alert. What had made her like that?

“Holly?”

Both women turned towards the doorway behind them. Barry was entering with Felicity, looking at Holly quizzically. “Didn’t you work today?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Question of the hour.”

“She wanted to help us with the gun,” Caitlin supplied, smoothing out the rough edges of Holly’s blunt reply.

“That might not be necessary,” Cisco interjected, descending into the cortex with excitement in his voice. “I think I figured out a way to track Captain Cold.”

Caitlin closed her eyes wearily. “You gotta stop naming these guys.”

“Listen to him, Barry,” Felicity urged him.

Obviously reluctant, Barry set his gaze on Cisco, who straightened his posture as if he were going into battle. “How?”

Cisco switched into science mode. “The cold gun is powered by an engine control unit, a microcomputer that regulates air-to-fuel ratios so the sub-cooled fluid in the chambers don't overflow and-”

“Explode,” Felicity finished for him.

“Right,” Cisco confirmed, moving towards the computers. “This E.C.U. was receiving updates wirelessly from my tablet. If I boost the signal using Central CIty’s network and send a false update, we’ll get a ping back, and then-”

“We can get his location,” Barry finished.

“You’ve got to hack into the network first though, how long will that take?” Holly asked.

Cisco shook his head as he thought about it. “Thirty minutes, maybe?”

Felicity perked up, walking around the counter to the prime computer. “I can do it in less than one. When it comes to hacking, I’m the fastest woman alive.” With a flicker of a smile at her own joke, she cracked her knuckles, then promptly grimaced. “That was not as badass as I’d pictured.”

Holly snorted, feeling a wave of affection for the computer genius. In a span of time so short it should have been impossible, Felicity pulled her furiously typing fingers from the keyboard. “All right, I’m in.”

“She’s kidding, right?” Holly asked Caitlin incredulously. After a moment, though, it was obviously that she wasn’t. Felicity was just really good at her job.

“Sending the updates,” Cisco nodded.

The room buzzed with activity, everyone leaning over a computer or someone’s shoulder except Barry, who was glaring at a wall like it was somehow to blame for the recent events. No one saw him.

“We got him. He’s heading west on Nelson towards the train station,” Cisco said, then a smile brightened his expression. Wells said something, but Barry wasn’t listening. “When we put our minds to it, dude, nothing can stop us,” Cisco cheered, but Barry was running, reappearing fully suited up. He reached up and tapped the side of his head, and Cisco frowned. “Whoa, you turned your earpiece off. How are we going to talk to you?”

In a steely tone they’d never heard from him before, Barry replied, “I don’t feel like talking right now.”

Within moments, he was gone. Caitlin watched as Holly’s fingertips began to flicker a luminescent violet, and just seconds later, the tablet her hand rested on went dead.

 

While Captain Cold waged a war on the civilians, Felicity fought for comradery. Only one was meant to win.

“You should go after Barry,” she insisted.

“You heard him, Felicity, he wants to do this alone,” Cisco said.

Holly laughed bitterly. “By what I’ve learned, giving Barry what he wants isn’t always a good idea.”

Caitlin made a face, then nodded when she realized just how accurate that statement was. Felicity snorted at her briefly as she continued. “Well, of course he said that. He’s hurt. You’re his team and his friends. If I had a nickel for every time the Arrow told me to back off, I would be as rich as Oliver Queen.” She hesitated, then her words spilled out in a rush. “Who I mention because he’s the richest person I know. Or used to be.”

Holly narrowed her eyes, but Felicity went on. “The point is, you have your partner’s back no matter what.”

Caitlin’s eyes darted to Holly. She seemed relatively unbothered by Felicity’s unconscious reference to her new situation with the Flash- in fact, there was a glimmer in her eyes that made Caitlin slightly nervous. Her mouth quirked up at the corner. “Hey, Cisco,” Holly said mischievously, “how’s my uniform coming along?”

 

Barry was running faster than he’d ever run, grabbing people out of midair, the train car spinning around him in slow motion, shards of glass suspended in the air like dangerous raindrops. He had to save everyone. 

He had to.

And, in a flash of golden energy, he did.

But the second he stopped (a near-fatal mistake), the icy burn of the cold gun’s blaze pinned him to the rail. He cried out in surprise and pain- mostly pain- and writhed against the rough ground, hoping to god that no train came and split him in two while he was down.

“Pretty fast, kid, but not fast enough,” Snart teased, raising the cold gun.

_ I don’t want to die like this _ , Barry had time to think, and then-

“Hey, asshole,” a familiar voice snarled, and Barry heard boots crunching on gravel. “Let the nice boy go.”

Snart’s surprise gave him away. He had barely registered the threat at all before a figure darted out of the shadows like they were one themselves, hurdling onto Snart’s back and tackling him to the ground. Dust flew up beneath the pair of them and, after a few seconds, the cold gun skidded across the dirt, out of Snart’s reach.

The figure had him pinned; one knee on his dominant arm, the other on his chest. “Hope you had fun playing Jack Frost,” she spat, a long French braid falling over her shoulder to dangle just above Snart’s face. If she hadn’t already beaten him, he might have snatched it.

Instead, he laughed. “Well, well, Flash. You’ve got yourself a-”

He wasn’t able to finish his sentence. She pressed the palm of her hand into his throat and applied enough pressure to close his windpipe. “What was that?”

Behind her, Cisco and Caitlin emerged from the dark and ran towards Barry, who had been mesmerized by the conflict. The burn of the ice made it hard to focus on anything else, but he was trying to wrap his head around what he’d seen.

“I could kill you,” she hissed.

“Don’t,” Wells ordered in her comms. “Holly, don’t waste your time on him. Let him go.”

She couldn’t move. Snart’s face was turning as violet as her suit.

“Let him go.”

She remembered the scream of her first kill in vivid detail. It echoed in her ears like it, too, was being broadcast in her comms.

And she relinquished her grip.

Snart sucked in oxygen as Holly stood up. “Leave. Don’t come back or I won’t play nice.”

He snickered breathlessly as he struggled to his feet. “You, sweetheart, are fighting for the wrong side.”

“I think I know what side I’m fighting for, douchebag,” she countered. She turned her back on him, confidence ebbing from her every move. “Call me if you want a rematch. I love my human punching bags.”

 

In the fluorescent lights of S.T.A.R. Labs, Barry finally saw Holly.

Her uniform was, well, beautiful. Cisco’s talents were almost wasted as a scientist if he’d thought that up all by himself. It was her signature indigo, made of some kind of athletic mesh that Cisco claimed was simultaneously protective and breathable. A black Teflon prototype that nearly resembled the armor of a medieval knight shimmered over her chest and down her back. The bottom part mostly resembled leggings, a darker indigo than the mesh, and steel-toed black boots shielded her shins. On her hands she wore her classic leather gloves, but improved: they were brand-new and reinforced on the knuckles to deliver a hell of a punch.

“Like the uniform?” Felicity prompted once everyone was safely home at the lab.

It took Barry a second to realize she was talking to him. “What? Um, yeah. It looks great.”

Holly was talking to Cisco in the doorway to the side lab, oblivious. When she turned her face, Barry realized why Felicity was so eager to get his response. A smear of deep, dark violet covered Holly’s eyes, like a painted-on mask. Like Oliver. Cisco’s talents had never been wasted- it was Felicity who’d added the final artistic touch.

She seemed very proud of herself. “I was hoping you’d like it, considering your new situation.”

“Situation?”

“You know,” Felicity went on, “partners and all?”

Partners. The word still seemed foreign to him. He had just gotten used to fighting, period, and now he’d be fighting with someone else? He had to admit one thing; if he could have chosen an ally it would have been Holly. “Yeah,” he murmured absently.

Holly turned back to the others and rolled her eyes, standing out against the purple. Looking at her head-on, Barry couldn’t keep from muttering, “Whoa.”

Holly let out a breath. “I look ridiculous.”

“No! No,” he immediately blurted out, the strip of color making her dark eyes somehow more magnetic. “No, it’s a good whoa.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized how stupid they sounded.

“Definitely a good whoa,” Felicity supplied, trying to hide her amusement and failing.

Holly seemed unconvinced. “We’ll see how it holds up.”

“Oh, it’ll hold up,” Cisco assured her. “That thing is specialized for you. And I’ll do you one better; that thing is electrically stimulated to enhance and level out your abilities. It’s made for…” He trailed off, rubbing his hands together like a child, “the Valkyrie.”


	9. candid

Becoming a superhero had a surprisingly small effect on Holly’s real life.  
Of course, there were the obvious things; dodging questions about her free time, keeping silent when her coworkers debated the existence of the streak, making up excuses so she could go fight some crime. But for the most part, life went on. She still ordered her coffee (grande caramelized honey latte) from her phone and picked it up at 6:45 Tuesday morning. She still played darts, badly, at Ashton’s after work while he and Sophia baked cookies.   
Barry had often complained about how hard it was to lead a double life, but Holly found it pretty easy. Ashton already knew she was ‘talented’, and no one else really cared enough to ask.  
But vice versa- Sophia and Ashton were beyond fascinated.  
“Okay, so do you know who he is?” Ashton asked, leaning on his elbows like a little boy.  
Holly rolled her eyes and stirred her iced tea with a straw. “Of course I do.” He didn’t reply, staring expectantly. After a moment, Holly sighed. “No, I’m not telling you.”  
“Why?” He whined.  
“Because it isn’t my secret to tell,” Holly said.  
“Yeah, Ashton,” Sophia put in, flicking his forehead as she reprimanded him, “no snitching.”  
Ashton held up his hands in surrender, resisting the urge to snicker at the five-year-old sitting at the table between him and Holly. “Sorry.”  
Holly couldn’t help herself. She grinned at Sophia and ruffled her soft curls. “This coming from the   
They obliged. As the commercial break ended and the beginning of a Season Five Doctor Who episode began, the trio settling into silence save for the occasional demand.  
“Give me the Takis.”  
“You’re sitting on my foot.”

“And how long had it been since you last eaten?”  
The patient smirked at her and avoided the question for the fourth time. “Well, Holly, I’d remember much better if I was eating dinner with a beautiful woman of science.”  
She rolled her eyes and conspicuously scooted her chair away from his. “Sir, I’d appreciate if you’d quit hitting on me and call me Dr. Stormcipher, please.” She had been perfectly polite in her words, but if the guy had an ounce of brain in his skull he’d take the hint. She was not interested.  
“Whatever you say, Dr. Sweetcheeks.”  
Holly briefly imagined smashing the pervert’s face in.  
“Well, I guess I’d eaten about seven hours before that,” he finally replied. He reclined in his chair like it was a chaise lounge and not a cheap hospital afterthought. It groaned a bit under his weight.  
She smiled a little, glad to have gotten through to him. “Were you hungry at any time in those seven hours?”  
“You should smile more often.”  
At the glare Holly gave him, he only cackled, exposing his browned, worn-out teeth. She spied a bit of food matter decaying to brown mush in his left molars.   
He made a ticking sound in the back of his throat. “Oh, that’s not flattering,” he scolded her.  
“Neither is lack of oral hygiene,” Holly muttered, scribbling on her clipboard to hide her anger. “Please answer the question.”  
He relented again. “Yeah, I was hungry. I couldn’t pull over, though, because I get paid an extra ten bucks a pop for timely delivery. Fuckin’ customers,” he spat.  
“Please mind your language, Mr. Heaton,” Holly urged. “There are children here.”  
“‘Mind your language’,” he mimicked her, his voice failing to copy hers even a little. He leaned forward, and Holly had to call on every cell in her body not to jerk away, vomit, or both. “You know, I could get used to being called ‘Mister’. Do it again.”  
She almost thought she could keep her cool until he placed his hand- untrimmed nails and unwashed fingers- on her thigh.  
The entire exchange lasted about a second and a half. Her clipboard clattered to the ground as Holly seized his upper arm with one hand and his wrist with the other, twisting it backward until she felt his joint pushing back on her. He cried out in pain as she felt her rage slowly dissipating. “Thank you for your cooperation. Never touch me again.”  
He looked up at her, whimpering pitifully, and she took mercy on him. Her grip released. He rubbed his arm protectively and frowned at her. She thought she spied tears in his eyes. “I’ll report you to your boss,” he hissed.  
Holly stood up, grabbing her clipboard before she turned to leave. “Bite me.”

Brooke’s abilities were fickle to say the least. According to her, she only saw things outside her own influence. The futures she couldn’t change that wouldn’t directly change her.  
Of course, once she knew something would happen it was set in stone. If Brooke envisioned a murder, someone was going to turn up dead. If she saw a thunderstorm in her mind’s eye, the city could rest assured it would be pouring fifteen minutes later.  
Always exactly fifteen minutes, too. They’d be two-thirds of the way through a season finale when Brooke would burst into tears, already knowing the ending.   
That’s how Holly always got to crime scenes. She was never fast or on a cop radio- she had a human (or metahuman) burglar alarm.  
Most of the time, though, Brooke lived a relatively normal life.  
The bell above the door at Hannigan’s Sweet Shoppe jingled cheerfully as Holly walked in and slid onto her usual barstool. The crisp white marble of the counter was cool beneath her leather-clad hands, slowly seeping through to ghost on her skin. Her fingers drummed on the marble and she looked wholly too grouchy to be in a sweets store until Brooke rounded the corner and a smile brightened both their faces.  
“Hey, sparkplug,” Brooke greeted her, looking straight out of another era in her vintage outfit. Her shiny dark blonde hair was done up in victory rolls, one swept across her forehead dramatically, her lips red as the Twizzlers behind her. A seafoam green dress hugged her ample curves, and the lapels of the top were cotton candy pink. A delicate red belt looped around her waist and a matching bandanna was knotted behind her bangs. Hannigan’s had been open since the 50’s, and Holly was pretty sure they’d kept the same dress code since then.  
“Hey, rockabilly girl.”  
Brooke glanced around to see if anyone was watching, then popped a mint in her mouth. Her words were muffled, but intelligible. “Can I get you anything, or is this a social call?”  
“Both. Give me some of that mocha chip ice cream.”  
Brooke went to work, her winged eyeliner forming a perfect curve along her lash line. “Why do you always come in here, it’s gotta drive your powers crazy.”  
“Don’t call them that,” Holly muttered, tugging at a loose thread of her gloves. “And yes, it does. But you’ve got ice cream, and leather’s a great insulator, so I can handle it.”  
Brooke piled on the taupe treat, becoming dangerously top heavy. “Well, thanks for handling it. I couldn’t stand it in here with the hipsters and the toddlers and no one sane.”

Sometimes, Ashton would catch a glimpse of missed calls on Holly’s phone. The numbers were unknown, but always the same. He remembered.  
When he asked her, she dodged the question. And he started to wonder what it was she was thinking about while she stared out the window when he drove her home.

“Holly!” Someone exclaimed, slamming down a coffee mug on the table with enough force to startle the doctor out of her nap.  
She raised her head from the impromptu pillow of her forearms. Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Really painful cotton. “Yeah?” She mumbled with a leaden tongue.  
Her overseeing nurse pushed Holly’s dark hair out of her face and frowned. “What happened, honey?” Her sharp tone from moments ago had faded, replaced by a motherly instinct to protect. Understandable, looking at the state of Holly’s face.  
Her left eye was blackened, red and purple and still swollen, even though she’d spent all of last night trying to make it look less awful. The bruise even covered part of her cheek, making it pretty clear that she’d been punched by someone with a purpose. “Nothing. Don’t ask.”  
The older woman pursed her lips. “That doesn’t look like nothing to me. Who did this to you?”  
Holly rolled her eyes- ow. “I promise I’m fine, it was just an accident. Sixteen years of jiu jitsu doesn’t make for a domestic abuse victim.” She stood up, feeling a bit banged up but not broken. She had to take blood from four different patients and sit in on two surgeries- no way was she taking her day off because of a stupid stray punch from a thug who-  
Kelly paused before nodding. “All right, if you say so. But you gotta come up with a better excuse than ‘nothing, don’t ask’.”  
“Okay,” Holly relented, nodding and pulling her messy hair into a ponytail. Her normally lively olive skin was a little more sallow than usual, but aside from that and the black eye she almost looked decent.  
Unfortunately, those two qualities managed to alert the entire hospital staff that someone hit the fantastic Holly Stormcipher hard enough to make her face look like the human equivalent of a train wreck. By two in the afternoon she’d been asked about her assailant eighteen times. One of the cancer patients even offered her some of her painkillers. Three hours later, she was glad to get home and fall into her bed. Relief washed over her like a wave.  
A very, tragically, infinitesimally small wave.  
Her phone went off- Cisco’s ringtone. Holly barely had time to think before she was being scooped up, dashed away. This time, she promised herself, there would be no black eyes. A smile curled at the corner of her mouth as a second thought occurred to her- well, no black eyes on her.

There had always been something Holly left unsaid, some ghost at the end of her sentence that never quite materialized. There were the words that spilled out recklessly when her mind spun into shadow and Ashton barely made out her whispering. Words like ‘cotillion’ or ‘biology’ or ‘black sheep’. The ones that, when spoken by anyone else, he could spy a slight tensing of her shoulders, a flicker of something soft and bruised and vulnerable flashing in her eyes for half a moment before she’d remember to pretend. Those words seemed to be the chinks in her armor, the tiny crevices where someone could get through and hurt her.   
Sometimes, Brooke thought for too long about Holly’s darknesses. She had known her since they were children, watching from across the street as a smaller Holly got her ass kicked in the dust of her front yard in a summer drought. She remembered the day she’d pulled the skinny younger girl aside into the girl's bathroom and gently covered her black eye with yellow and green concealers and a significant amount of complaining. She remembered the day Holly had grown taller than she was, and the day she’d grown prettier. Instead of being jealous, Brooke had been proud. But under the pretty, Holly was in a constant state of storm. Fury and determination and desperation and some constant violence under her skin kept her going, kept her fighting even when she didn’t need to. Twenty years hadn’t changed that about her.  
One day they both waited up for her after work. The two of them went together about as well as white chocolate and soy sauce, the short, curvy blonde girl beside the tall dark doctor.  
They didn’t only clash in appearance.  
“You’re not coming to movie night, are you?” Brooke asked with dread pooling in her mind at his answer.   
Ashton shrugged. “She invited me.”  
“Well, you’re officially uninvited. I’m not sharing my couch with my best friend’s fuckbuddy-”  
“Sexcapader,” Ashton corrected her.  
“Sexca- what?” Brooke exclaimed. “You did not just invent yourself a new name for being friends with benefits.”  
Ashton glanced over at Brooke, over a foot shorter than him and yet nearly as fiery as Holly. It was slightly less intimidating with her bandanna around her head, today’s color pink, and her pop of scarlet lipstick, but that didn’t stop her from sharpening her green eyes into a sharp glower. “That’s the most pretentious thing you’ve ever done.”  
“I thought calling myself a hunk earned that title.”  
Brooke rolled her eyes. “You managed to upstage yourself, then.”  
The hospital doors opened, revealing a ponytailed, exhausted, scrub-wearing Holly, whose scowl deepened as she realized the dilemma she’d need to sort out. Every time Ashton and Brooke collided without Holly to buffer them, World War Three threatened to unfold. Whether their war ground was a sofa or a parking lot, the argument always ended in tiny little Brooke trying to fight Ashton and Ashton being way too amused.  
So by the time Holly reached her two best friends, Brooke was swinging her fists ineffectively at Ashton, who held her at arm’s length with a hand on the top of her head. Her face was turning nearly as red as her lips with her fury.  
“I see all is well in the world. The moon is rising, the wind is nigh, and Brooke Hannigan is still trying and failing to punch Ashton Kane,” Holly said reverently, sweeping her arms dramatically.  
“Your sarcasm-” swing and miss- “is not-” another miss- “appreciated,” Brooke wheezed.  
Holly sighed, dropping her arms to her sides. “Okay, joke’s over. Quit trying to kill each other.”  
Brooke reluctantly settled, her cheeks returning to a normal shade. Ashton released her head, and she huffed as she fixed her victory rolls. “She uninvited me to movie night,” Ashton tattled.  
“He invented a new title for fuckbuddy,” Brooke countered.   
Holly’s expression didn’t change. “Ashton’s reinvited.”  
Brooke gasped loudly, eyes widening with shock. “He’s not sharing my couch.”  
“Our couch. We’re roommates, everything’s communal,” Holly corrected her flatly. Her tiny burst of joy from escaping work had faded into annoyance. She took a few steps forward and led the way towards the cars. She and Ashton usually carpooled, and Brooke’s yellow Fiat was parked beside his Honda.   
“Can I at least choose the movie?” Brooke whined, and Ashton brushed a hand across Holly’s lower back as support. She loved Brooke; he did too, in a way. But when the girl pestered either of them, it was easy to get a little short on patience. Holly’s outbursts weren’t pleasant.  
It seemed like it worked. “Sure, as long as it isn’t Rocky Horror.”  
Brooke sighed in resignation, but didn’t speak as she got into her car and headed for home. It left Ashton and Holly under the cheap street lights together.  
“I heard about the code blue,” he began.  
She pulled her shoulders back to compose herself. “You did, huh?”  
“A freak complication with the surgery on a collapsed lung.”  
“Yeah.”  
He swallowed hard. “She’d just done her conference with you when she went under.”  
A shadow crossed Holly’s expression. He vaguely remembered the girl- brilliant red hair, lively eyes, sense of humor- and how she’d been the one to call for help when Holly had a breakdown. Trying to adjust to a sudden death never got easier. “Yeah, she did. Her name was Isla.”  
He hesitated for a moment, about to ask more, but Holly shook her head and pulled open the passenger side door. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Holly had always lived up to her name. She was a storm- an occasionally poisonous storm. But even storms gave way to sunshine every now and then.  
“Remember that time Harry Heller and Jason Green asked you to homecoming at the same time?” Holly asked, her cheeks ruddy from giggling.  
“Oh my god,” Brooke chortled. “I said no to both of them.”  
“No, you didn’t-”  
“I did!” Brooke insisted, but her resolve was inhibited by the giggles rising in her throat. “I did, I said they should just go with each other.”  
Holly took another shot, her eyes squeezing closed for a few seconds before she blinked twice and deadpanned, “So that’s what bravery tastes like.”  
Brooke squinted at the empty shot glasses on the table. “Are those ours?”  
Holly mimicked her. “I don’t know.”  
Apparently, Brooke thought that was funny. She guffawed loudly and nearly ended up snorting. Holly, for once, joined in, her own laughter mingling with her bubbly friend’s. They caused such a scene that more than a few glares were cast their way.  
As per usual, Holly didn’t give two shits. She gasped for air and managed to say, “I’m not drinking that.”  
“That’s your first good decision of tonight,” Brooke quipped.   
Holly snorted again, her cheeks aching with her stretched smile. “I’m not famous for my judgment.”  
If they’d been a bit less intoxicated they might have noticed the smears of violet around Holly’s eyes, left over from an earlier escapade. Half-washed off by water and the rest left to wear away. Something about her had never changed, not after the accident, not after becoming a superhero. The Valkyrie, as Cisco had christened her.  
She’d never lost the darkness in her eyes.


	10. from the dark of the night

“A new metahuman?” Caitlin asked quizzically.  
“It’s like they’re multiplying,” Holly deadpanned.  
Cisco opened his mouth to make a joke about Captain Clone or whatever he’d ended up naming him, but the words died in his throat at the vaguely Holly-ish glare he received from Barry. He went on, pulling a security feed onto the front screens. A teenage boy with long blonde hair wandered into a seemingly innocuous bookstore, but glanced around nervously as if he was looking for someone. When a middle-aged man in a blue shirt approached him, waving his arms like he was angry, the boy glowered.   
He didn’t even move. The man shouted, crumpling to his knees and falling heavily on a bookcase. Volumes tumbled out, spilling over his arms and shoulders, but he hardly noticed them as he shook in terror. Holly had never believed people actually quivered with fright until that moment.  
“What’s so scary about a kid?” Caitlin asked.  
The boy, on screen, looked around the shop. The man in the blue shirt was obviously not who he was looking for. He only looked a little bit guilty about reducing him to a shivering mess on the floor.  
Cisco paused the video and turned to them. “Okay, I know it seems pretty normal at first-”  
“Normal?”   
“Our normal,” Cisco amended. “But this guy, Larry Cavill, ended up having a heart attack a few minutes after this kid left. He’s in intensive care at Mercer Kite Hospital now, but whatever that kid did seriously messed him up.”  
Caitlin narrowed her eyes at the looped camera feed. “How did he scare him enough to give him a heart attack?”  
“Wait, I know this one,” Holly interrupted, holding up a finger and squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to recall the lessons from her seminar. There had been a kid in front of her who always ate powdered donuts before-  
“It’s actually biologically possible to die of fright,” she said with a snap of her fingers, eyes flying open. “The sudden burst of adrenalin caused by extended terror can stun the heart into inaction and effectively cause a heart attack. Not inherently fatal, but without proper treatment it could be.”  
“So the kid scared him to death?” Barry asked.  
Holly paused, biting her lip. Her brief moments of triumph were over. “I want to say yes, but it’s just a kid. I don’t know what he could have done to scare him that badly.”  
Cisco smiled, and the only way he could’ve made himself look more mischievous was if he was rubbing his hands together. “That’s where I come in. The hospital took some scans and this poor guy’s serotonin and GABA levels were as close to zero as they could be without seriously screwing him up.” He tapped the tablet in his hand and the scans he’d spoken of replaced the camera feed. “While his adrenalin spiked like crazy.”  
“Not just fear, but terror for his life,” Holly added.  
“Right. The dude is still heavily sedated, even though the heart attack isn’t debilitating,” Cisco said, leaving the end of the sentence for them to infer.  
Barry didn’t quite understand, though, and he wasn’t alone in that. “Why?”  
Cisco swallowed hard. “Because he woke up screaming.” He met each of their eyes briefly before muttering, “Twice.”  
An uncomfortable quiet settled over the four of them, only interrupted a few moments later by the soft whirr of an electric wheelchair. Dr. Wells smirked as he saw what the team was looking at- the under-publicized anomaly of the boy in the bookstore. “What’ve we got today, team?” He asked cheerfully. Almost unusually cheerfully.  
“In essence, a boy gave a man a heart attack with a scowl,” Caitlin summarized.  
Wells whistled softly. “That’s a hell of a pout.”  
“Tell me about it,” Cisco mumbled, absorbed in the statistics from the hospital.   
Holly walked to stand beside him, offering a trained eye. Her expression clouded as she scanned the files, noticing something missing- patient details. “Where’s the rest of this case file?”  
“This is all of it,” Cisco replied, sounding confused. He offered his tablet to Holly, though, and she began to tap around on it while biting the corner of her lip. Ten seconds later, the file expanded, exposing all sorts of previously hidden comments.   
“Whoa,” Cisco murmured.  
Holly, proud of herself, took a few steps back to take it in. “‘Whoa’ is right. Looks like his doctors were more than freaked out by his condition.” Holly began to read aloud from the files she’d uncovered. “Patient nearly incoherent: noted phrases ‘accident’, ‘sorry’, and ‘trouble’. Will delegate visit to psychiatric when ready for transfer. Patient’s family unable to explain sudden apparent mental snap. Patient under for the foreseeable future’.  
“Doesn’t sound pleasant,” Wells said.  
Barry was still preoccupied with Holly’s magic tech skills. “How did you do that?”  
She smirked. “Long story involving one of the Mercer Kite orderlies, me, and an impressive absence of clothes. I got the password.”  
Barry tried really hard not to react to that, and Cisco watched him fail miserably.  
Her fingers flew over the tablet, and he noticed Caitlin staring apprehensively at her hands- bare against the metal. The spark of an idea took root in his mind, watching Holly’s tranquil beauty while she was calm. Not only had her powers seemed to subside, but she as a person seemed softer, more real. The hint of a smile echoed across her lips as she accomplished a small victory. CIsco wondered if this was the Holly she’d been before the particle accelerator blew.  
“He’s scheduled for nurse transfer,” she announced, really smiling this time. It remained on her face so obviously that Barry doubted she realized she was doing it at all. Holly rarely let her guard down for that long knowingly. He let his gaze linger on her while she was unaware.  
“I’ll see if I can figure out where,” she continued, placing the tablet down near Cisco’s computer. “Maybe I’ll know the right questions to ask.” Holly’s smile faded, but it left a certain warmth in the room, like the heat in a body after sunset. The shadows returned, but the feeling of light never left. Neither did the slight smirk that had spread to Barry.  
Her phone buzzed, pressed against the counter in her back pocket. She glanced down to read it, and in that second, Caitlin and Cisco exchanged a meaningful glance. They both saw what Holly wasn’t looking for.  
“Are you needed elsewhere, Dr. Stormcipher?” Wells asked, amused. He saw it, too.  
Holly’s brief happiness left her. She sighed in exasperation and explained, “Two of my friend’s trainees just had a family emergency. The perks of having twin brothers as your backup.” She gathered up her purse and started towards the door. “I need to be at the psych hospital twenty minutes ago. If you need anything, beep me.”  
Cisco looked back at Barry just in time to watch his smirk grow before he dashed, the lightning in his path concentrating around Holly in the doorway for a moment before both of them disappeared.  
“Ten bucks says she smacks him after they get there,” Cisco put forth.  
Dr. Wells smiled. “Twenty.”

The world came back into focus again, the looming beige brick of Farraday General towering around the pair of them. Holly’s arms were tightly wound around Barry’s neck, his arm beneath her knees. Strands of black hair tickled his nose after flying loose from her ponytail.   
He released her legs, already prepared for a verbal lashing. But instead, she didn’t let go. She held him tight, head pressed against his shoulder, her breaths heavy. He realized that snatching her up and running top-speed might not have been as easy for her as it was for him. They’d only done it a few times before- she probably wasn’t exactly used to super speed quite yet.   
And she was still clinging to him like he was a lifeboat.  
“We stopped running,” he said hesitantly.  
Holly inhaled shakily. “We did?”  
“Yeah.”  
They fell into quiet. She didn’t let go.  
Barry couldn’t really breathe, he needed to itch his nose, and Holly’s chin was jabbing him in the shoulder. He couldn’t deny that it felt amazing to be held by her anyway. Even then, he knew she probably wouldn’t want it to last longer than it had to. That thought hurt a little, and he didn’t stop to think why. “Are you going to let go?”  
“No.”  
“Oh. Okay…?”  
They stayed in their current position for what felt like a year for Holly and mere moments for Barry. He could feel her breathing return to normal with their chests pressed together the way they were, and if he focused he thought he might’ve felt her heartbeat. Just as he summoned up the courage to maybe touch her, hold her like she was holding him, she released her constrictor grasp.  
“I really need to get inside,” she said, taking in her surroundings. They were in the space between two buildings, the windows like eyes. Holly caught a glimpse of a young girl on the fourth floor watching them, hoping that no one would believe her story of the girl and boy who appeared in a flash of lightning.  
She still didn’t move, though.  
“I’ll call you if we find anything on that metahuman,” Barry stammered, simultaneously trying to get her inside and keep her near him. She had to go. He really didn’t want her to.  
“Okay,” she replied. She hesitated, like there were volumes in her head that she desperately needed to let go of, like she’d reveal the other Holly that he’d seen that one time downstairs at the lab.  
When she didn’t, turning away from him, he let himself stare after her again. Something had gone unsaid, but that was nothing new.

“Who was that?” Ashton marveled, materializing beside Holly as soon as she entered the hospital.  
She didn’t need to look behind her. “Just a guy I know.”  
“He’s cute.”  
Holly rolled her eyes. “He’s an idiot. And a jerk. And I think he likes girls.”  
Ashton shrugged, sizing Holly up with his stupid smirk. “I’m not so sure. He hasn’t met me yet.” He made a comical double chin, but somehow made it look good.  
Trying not to come off as possessive, she put a hand on his face and shoved him off. “Lucky him. What happened to the Graysons?” She asked, trying to stop thinking of herself clinging to Barry like a helpless damsel in distress.  
Ashton sighed. “Apparently, they’ve got an aunt in hospice care. Or, they did.”  
Holly grimaced sympathetically and was about to say something along the lines of I’m sorry, something that wouldn’t help anything but made her feel a little bit better about the tragedy, but Ashton interrupted.  
“Which would be sad and all if it wasn’t the same exact excuse they’ve used the past four times they wanted to start their weekend at their Naples beach house early.”  
The grimace became a sneer. “Douchebags.”  
“So now Nina’s going out of her mind trying to cover all the bases down at Psych while you’re only doing part-time, thanks to your new hobby-”  
“It’s basically babysitting,” Holly interjected.  
“-and now I’ve got all your returners. You know, for someone so prickly, you sure have gathered a fan club,” Ashton finished, trailing away from his offense. “Four of your patients have been interrogating me about you every single day I’m subbing. Fair warning- the one with the broken leg is going to ask you out.”  
Holly shrugged. “Thanks for the heads-up, but he’s made a habit of it every time he’s on morphine.”  
Ashton paused, trying to work out why a standard fracture patient would have enough time in the hospital to have made habits. Holly noted his confusion and added, “He’s a BMX kid, gets himself torn up all the time.”  
“Oh,” Ashton said. He seemed slightly disappointed.  
“I wasn’t keeping it from you or anything,” Holly supplied, feeling oddly guilty for whatever she’d done to make him stop grinning so brightly.  
He didn’t seem any less dissatisfied, but before Holly could try again, someone collided with her. She managed to stay on her feet, as did the other nurse. It didn’t seem to calm the other girl down, though, since she covered her mouth with her hands in shock, teary blue eyes going wide with embarrassment.  
“I am so sorry,” she gushed, placing a hand on Holly’s shoulder as if to make sure she was okay. Holly found that oddly funny, since she wasn’t the one on the verge of crying.  
“It’s okay,” she assured her, taking in how young she looked. There was no way she was any older than twenty-one. Her short blonde hair was gathered into two low ponytails, sprouting out from their confines like tiny fireworks, reddened blue eyes large and kind as they searched Holly for any sign of injury. She only came up to Holly’s chin in height. A scattering of freckles danced across the bridge of her nose. In short, she was pretty much the cutest person Holly had ever seen, even about to cry. “What’s wrong?” She asked, not sure she was equipped to deal with a crying stranger but reluctant to leave her be.  
The smaller girl sniffled, blinking away the wetness in her eyes. “I didn’t believe everyone when they said not to start departmental relationships.”  
Yeah, that was definitely not Holly’s area.  
Ashton took Holly’s place beside the girl, calming her. She lingered behind them until Ashton shot her a look that said ‘you know you don’t want to get into this mess’. He was always right.  
Holly continued on her way, hoping that whatever had gotten her called in wasn’t too big of a deal. She hated the patients who were just waiting to code. The image of the cute little nurse who’d collided with her faded from her mind as she entered the ICU.  
Upon entering the ICU, she felt the change in mood without expecting it. She couldn’t remember a time when Intensive Care felt so… intense. The nurses hurried about their business in silence, faces drawn in- fear? Anxiety? Holly wasn’t the best at naming emotions- and as Holly passed them, they all glanced at her as if she was a stranger.  
That’s around when Holly heard the shouting.  
Coming from room 198, muffled cries haunted the hallway, the words mostly intelligible. But Holly knew what to listen for- and her heart dropped as she opened the door.  
Among the words pouring from the poor, terrified man’s lips, she heard ‘accident’ and ‘sorry’ more than anything else.   
The nurse transfer. The password.  
“Freaky, isn’t it?”  
Holly fliched at the unexpected words in her ear. She looked up to see Cade Reasor, the unintentionally creepy head of psych. He was almost attractive- green-eyed and golden-haired- but his habit for unsolicited commentary and strange hobbies had earned him a reputation for weirdness. Holly was perhaps the only person in the hospital who was able to deal with him.  
She didn’t answer, snapping out of her shock to enter the room and close the door behind Cade. “I need 100 CC’s of suxamethonium chloride and breathing apparatus.”  
Cade smirked before retrieving it, his voice barely audible over Larry’s shouts. “You want to paralyze him?”  
“Temporarily. Go.”  
He shrugged and left the room, leaving Holly alone with the terrified man. She checked to make sure the room was free of cameras as she rolled back her latex glove, then gently placed the bare skin of her wrist on his neck. There was a short flare of blue light, followed shortly by Larry’s descent into sleep. Holly rolled up her glove again and sighed back the newly awakened hunger in her blood. She squatted beside the bed and narrowed her eyes at Larry Cavill, studying his tear-streaked face and five o'clock shadow.   
“What are you afraid of?” She whispered to herself.  
The door swung open again, and quick footfalls alerted Holly that whoever had just entered wasn’t Cade.  
She stood in half a second, whirling on the intruder with fists at the ready, but she found herself pausing at the sight. A young girl, maybe sixteen, with a short black pixie cut and brilliant blue eyes, raced in and leaned over the bed. Tears were in her eyes, too, and Holly wondered how many crying people she’d have to placate today.  
“Cavill!” She cried, feeling for a pulse although with his shouts quieted the beeping of the heart monitor was clearly audible. Not a daughter, but perhaps close to one.  
“You can’t be in here,” Holly said kindly, following her orders. No visitation yet; but this girl seemed different, familiar, strange. She wanted to know who she was.   
The girl’s eyes crackled as she glared up at Holly. “He’s basically my dad.”  
“Basically?”  
“Yeah.”  
Holly knew the girl seemed familiar, but she didn’t get a chance to deduce why before Cade returned with the suxamethonium. He ushered the girl out- tall and muscular, he was a bit more intimidating to the girl than Holly was. Even then, as Holly administered the drug, she heard her scuffling against him. She was fiery if she was anything.  
After the system was set up, Holly studied the man’s vitals in the hopes that she’d see something new. Of course, she didn’t. Cade reentered behind her, unsettling presence finding a place to linger at the foot of the bed.  
“What’s he so scared of?” He muttered.  
Holly pursed her lips. “I was wondering the same thing.”  
Larry Cavill’s heartbeat was steady now, uncharacteristic for a heart attack victim. Even if she didn’t know there was a world full of impossible things out there, if she didn’t bear a bruise where just yesterday one of the impossible things had finally hit her in the shoulder, she would know something was strange in this case.  
Brain beginning to ache with the effort of calculating and recalculating the possibilities, Holly sighed and straightened. “I’ve got a few other patients down the hall. You can hang out with this guy if you want.”  
“Oh, I want,” Cade assured her.  
“Good. I’m out of here.”  
Holly left the room, the image of the girl and her sort-of dad and Barry and the twins swirling together in her mind. She shook her head as if to clear it, then went first to Jackson Lucas, the infamous BMX crasher, to get the romancing out of the way.  
When she first entered his room, everything seemed okay. Jackson was facing away, his suspended leg twisting his torso at an awkward angle, his mess of wiry black hair the polar opposite of the white pillow beneath his head. Her aversion to being hit on didn’t come from his looks- in fact, he was quite appealing- but, in her experience, she wasn’t very good at operating within relationships. Too many unspoken rules to be broken.  
Taking a deep breath, she prepared for his cheesy pickup line. “How are you doing today, Mr. Lucas?”  
A few seconds passed. He didn’t reply.  
“Jackson,” she prompted, a sense of dread rising in her chest.  
Holly slowly made her way around the bed to see his face, and it confirmed her fears. He was pale with terror, shaking slightly with his knuckles white. He was whispering about his legs, his legs, he couldn’t feel his legs, he couldn’t move-  
“Oh no,” Holly whispered, an awful realization dawning on her. “Cade!” She shouted, running out into the hallway. “Dr. Reasor!”  
He emerged from Cavill’s suite and ran towards Holly just as Jackson let out a scream. He followed the sound, understanding, as Holly began to run from room to room, checking the status of the other patients. With every glance, her heart dropped deeper and deeper into her gut; he’d been thorough. As she reached the end of the hall, the old woman in C132 coded, and doctors rushed past her to help.   
Hoping she was wrong, Holly dashed up the opposite way, to the section of rooms on the other side of Cavill’s suite. The patients there were quiet- almost too quiet. She ducked her head inside the first room, but was met with a sight she certainly hadn’t expected.  
Jessica Brooks, who had been nearly catatonic in the past week, was smiling absently, sitting up and gazing out her window. Her gaze wasn’t fixed on anything in particular, instead gracing over the blue sky and clouds as if they were playing her favorite movie.  
The next room. Harry Thompson. Same case.  
Next. Next.  
The same symptoms presented themselves in every room. Not nightmares- good dreams. Holly thought his abilities only extended to nightmares, but maybe she was wrong.  
More importantly, the boy from the bookshop was in the hospital. Or he had been recently enough to have his effect.  
Holly’s phone rang, and she answered without looking at the caller ID. “Cisco?”  
“What’s going on, Holly?” He asked, and she heard the telltale tapping on his computer. He knew about the hospital’s sudden spike in… impossibility.  
She ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. This doesn’t add up.”  
Whoosh.  
She found herself dizzy and back in the cortex a few seconds later, hair flying loose from her ponytail just like before. She was enraged for a second, but as she realized her chin rested on red leather (screw high-polymer-friction-whatever it was), she understood that they were going into battle one way or another.   
It didn’t stop her from smacking him in the shoulder before swinging her legs to the floor. This time, though, she gained her sea legs faster and dashed towards where the Valkyrie uniform was stashed, slipping into it in under a minute in the makeshift changing room. She ignored Barry’s whining from the cortex and reemerged half formed, save for her armored top and loosened ponytail that she struggled to braid herself. The purple haze across her eyes that typically made them appear to glow was similarly absent. “Who are we beating up now?”  
“That kid from the bookshop was in the hospital earlier,” Caitlin began.  
“I know,” Holly interrupted, still attempting to do her hair. “He got a bunch of the patients there-”  
“He wasn’t looking for Cavill,” Caitlin continued. “He was looking for-”  
Barry moved like lightning, as usual, and seconds later Holly’s long hair was restrained into a French braid. She didn’t say anything, trying to pay attention to Caitlin, but she ran her fingers down the smooth tail and glanced in surprise from it to Barry. He was so absorbed in that look of near-admiration, the somewhat addictive way her eyes crinkled up in half amusement, half confusion, that he only heard the end of Caitlin’s statement.  
“-and she’s meeting him under the Fifth Street overpass in two hours, according to their last text message.”  
Barry looked back to Caitlin first, and if he hadn’t known better he’d have thought he felt Holly’s gaze lingering. “What?”  
Cisco giggled softly as Wells slowly smirked. Caitlin rolled her eyes, thinking of a way to condense what she just said into a synopsis, “I said we have two hours to come up with a weapon with which to fight a boy who starts nightmares.”

“Sorry.”  
“You better be,” Holly quipped.  
Four people working in a space made for much less made for some conflicts, especially   
when those people were on the clock. They had an hour and a half to come up with the serum, before whatever Caitlin had witnessed on his phone.  
Holly and Barry weren’t feeling much like partners today, apparently.  
His elbow clashed with hers for the third time, and she slammed down her tool and pushed him away from the counter with much more force than necessary. “Having trouble with spatial awareness today, are we?”   
Barry didn’t want to fight her. Not only because she would kick his ass, but also because she was Holly. Whatever that implied.  
They were in the cortex in the blink of an eye, but she was getting faster, too. She swung a punch at him, but he caught her fist in his hand. After a moment’s pause, her eyes darting down to where he’d blocked her, she moved again.   
“Can we please not do this again?” Caitlin protested, but her words once again had no effect on the fighting superhumans.  
“There’s people-” uppercut- “in my hospital wing-” roundhouse kick- “dying because of that kid!” Holly ducked under one of Barry’s blocks in a spin, slamming an elbow into his ribcage. “And you’re screwing with my ability to help save them!”  
“Holly, stop!”  
For some reason, Wells’ command stopped her. Holly paused mid-kick. She stepped away, oddly winded for a girl who never lost. “Stay in your bubble, Allen,” she warned him, sauntering back into the lab. She had to shoulder past Cait and Cisco to get there, but they didn’t exactly put up a fight.   
She went back to work in the lab, alone, as her four coworkers shared a meaningful look in the cortex. “Barry, can I talk to you for a moment?” Wells asked. Caitlin and Cisco took the hint, slowly edging back into the lab. Holly worked with an absent scowl on her face, and Caitlin thought she saw her hand shake as she dropped an amber liquid into a vial, but she wasn’t entirely sure.  
In the hall, Wells rotated in his wheelchair to face Barry. His face was drawn in concern- for whom, Barry wasn’t certain. “Do you understand why Holly’s always using you as her personal punching bag?”  
“Quite honestly, no,” Barry admitted.   
Wells nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t think she really does, either. But it’s easier to see from the outside.”  
He shook his head, trying to get the point. ”What’s easier to see?”  
“She’s afraid of being cared about.”  
Barry’s brows knit together in confusion. “Why would she be afraid of that?”  
Wells shrugged and entwined his fingers behind his head, reaching his insight’s apparent end. “Perhaps if you showed her that she didn’t need to be, we wouldn’t have to build an anti-vitality gun.”  
Barry paused, the memory of the cold gun’s sheer pain flashing through his mind. “Are you building an anti-vitality gun?”  
“Gain her trust, Barry,” Wells advised. “She cares about you, too.”  
He frowned. “I really don’t think she does, judging by the amount of times a day she decks me.”  
Wells seemed mildly amused at that, his blue eyes glimmering with hidden knowledge. To Barry’s chagrin, he didn’t care to disclose it. “Get to work. You’ve got nightmares to fight.”  
The wheelchair whirred to face the other direction, and the conversation was obviously over. Barry shook his head, smiling slightly, then returned to the lab. Caitlin and Cisco weren’t beside Holly; in fact, he didn’t see them anywhere. She worked solo in the lab, the fluorescent lights glimmering off of her black braid and exposed shoulders. She faced away, so he couldn’t tell what kind of bad mood she was in.   
“Hey,” he interrupted.  
Her grasp suddenly tightened on the test tube in her hand, and it shattered into shards in the palm of her hand. “Shit!”  
He took a step forward, reaching for her hand, but she recoiled, gaze flickering between his fingers and her gloveless flesh. Holly’s eyes were painfully honest and uncharacteristically fearful. She had shrunk back a few steps, reminding him on a spooked mustang.   
“You’re bleeding,” he prompted.  
She snapped out of it and picked up a pair of tweezers, beginning to pry the glass out of her skin. She was silent as she worked, hardly wincing as the pile of bloodstained prisms on the counter grew. Barry was somewhat fascinated by the little quirks in her lip, the only sign that she was human and in pain.   
“Are you going to stare at me or finish that serum?” She grumbled, startling Barry into action.  
He picked up the vial she’d been working on, filled with a yellow-green liquid that seemed to be separating already. “What’s in this thing?”  
Holly extracted another smaller shard. “Thomas used to suffer from anxiety. He took this stuff called Oxazepam to help with it, so I extracted the active ingredient and combined it with a sedative. Hopefully, it’ll calm him down and knock him out long enough for us to find a better solution. I don’t think he was trying to hurt Cavill, he doesn’t deserve to be hurt himself.”  
Barry paused. “Who’s Thomas?”  
“I told you not to come in my room.”  
“I told you I don’t take orders,” she snapped.  
The elder boy sneered at his ebony-haired, leather-jacket-clad rival. “You should’ve been born a boy, Holly.” He took a step forward, and the smaller girl could smell his expensive cologne he’d applied in bulk. He drew back a hand, shaking with fury. “Or, even better, you never should’ve been born at all.”  
“Stop it,” Holly whispered, then glanced up as she realized she’d spoken aloud. Barry was watching her like a hawk, seeming more concerned about her than pretty much anyone except Ashton. “Sorry, what?”  
Gathering that he’d breached a sensitive topic, Barry asked his second question. “Why are you targeting anxiety?”  
“I thought about Angela Ceberano’s TED talk on it, specifically the part about anxiety attacks-”  
“You watch TED talks?” Barry interrupted, and for once her eyes became aflame with interest instead of rage. “Which one’s your favorite?”  
“I just watched Charlie Morley’s on nightmares, and I think it might have just beat my last number one,” she explained. “It used to be ‘If I Should Have a Daughter’. I thought poetry was for spectacle-wearing introverts in libraries, but I was so wrong.”  
He smiled, probably the first real smile he’d bestowed on her in a while. And, to his irrationally great pleasure, she returned it. “I loved Hans Rosling’s newscaster stats, it kept me laughing the entire time.”  
“Me too! It reminded me of freshman bio. I had this teacher who dragged me out of my pre-teenage apathy by making frog dissection seem cooler than a rock concert.” She paused, biting her bottom lip and forgetting about her red-stained hand. “I think his name was… Mr. Kelley?”  
A piece of Holly’s history, freely given. Barry felt oddly included, like he’d been invited to sit with the popular kids at high school lunch. He remembered Wells encouraging him to gain her trust and smiled even brighter. This was definitely a step in the right direction. “We dissected cow eyes in my bio class.”  
“Mine too! But I think my favorite was-”  
“The cat?”  
“The cat!” She confirmed, bouncing on her toes twice as her eyes nearly sparkled. “We named mine Robert Lee Clineberg the Third.”  
Barry made a face and glanced away, already shown up. “Mine was just Stripes.”  
“How creative.”  
Barry felt like he was dreaming. “I was more occupied with the smell of that preservative stuff-”  
“Formaldehyde or formalin,” Holly supplied.  
“Right,” he continued, “I remember how everyone was disgusted by the fact that we were touching dead things. I kept asking why they killed the cat in the first place.”  
Holly smiled abashedly. “I wanted to know, too.”  
The two of them fell silent, and Holly didn’t let the smile on her face fade. She was somehow still the same Holly that beat his ass all the time, fire and wit, but now she was happy. Happy, because of him. Warmth spread through his chest and into his face, and Holly thought he looked kind of cute blushing like that.  
The centrifuge pinged, and for a moment, neither moved. Then Holly cleared her throat and walked around Barry to retrieve the serum. He shook his head, attempting to clear it, then looked over her shoulder as she rolled the vial over in her hands. “I think we’re done.”  
Just as the words passed her lips, the timer ended, flashing blue on the screens. Holly ran for her top and the violet paint, applying the stripe over her eyes in a few seconds. To Barry, the seconds seemed like a lifetime. He took the liberty of slipping the body armor over her shoulders before scooping her up and running.  
Her reaction time grew shorter every time. As soon as he stopped, Holly hit the ground running, up the ramp on the side of the overpass. Barry saw the same thing she did- the sandy-haired bookshop boy, facing the other way at the opposite side of the overpass. He hadn’t seen them arrive. Barry was fast, but he was no Holly; she moved silently at the top of the incline, barely visible in the shadows, catlike in every step. He took to the opposite side, making agonizingly slow progress.   
Footsteps echoed from around the corner, and both of them concealed themselves in the space between the beams of concrete. A girl’s voice charmed Barry into peeking out from around the beam, and he wondered how Holly had managed to fully conceal herself in the tiny space she’d found.  
A girl with short black hair glared at their boy, her eyes a striking blue even from twenty feet away. “What the hell are you doing, Chrys?”  
Chrys stepped forward and crossed his arms. “I’m using this curse to make things even.”  
“Almost killing Cavill is not getting even, you idiot!” She shouted, her voice echoing loudly down the road. “He didn’t fuck you over, he tried to help you!”  
“He told me I was evil,” Chrys challenged. Holly’s left foot slipped down the incline slowly, silently, then her her hand, crooking her finger in Barry’s general direction. He got the message and was beside her in the blink of an eye, her weight in his arms and then both of them beside the two children.  
Both looked up in shock at the apparent materialization of two people beside them. Holly’s hand was already on the plunger of the syringe and before Chrys could even blink he was being injected.  
The effect wasn’t immediate- therein lied the first mistake. The girl started shouting at both of them, but it was too late. Chrys snarled in Holly’s direction, all his rage focused on one person.  
From the outside, it looked like he’d slapped her. Holly recoiled, leaving the needle in Chrys’s shoulder, and Barry was so busy trying to see if he’d managed to get her that he left himself open. Chrys’s blue eyes stared right into Barry’s, and the whole world sizzled out of focus.  
Holly took over from there, darting around Chrys’s eyesight to deliver a few key blows to his torso. Her final blow gave her the time to run, a simple crack of a fist against his temple, and then she dashed up the ramp and onto the top of the overpass.   
The highway was out of use, no traffic for miles. Holly scrambled across to pick up a piece of rebar, but the sister beat her brother over the edge of the overpass. “Your friend is okay,” she announced, approaching Holly with more than a little caution. “I know you’re afraid of my brother, but he’s afraid of you, too-”  
Hospital girl.  
“He’s gotten a lot of people hurt,” Holly retorted.  
“He doesn’t mean to,” she promised. Her blue eyes glimmered with real despair. “My name’s Elle. I know you’re like us. I’ve heard of you, and of the Flash. We aren’t trying to hurt anyone, we just need help.”  
Holly hesitated, remembering her own treacherous slide towards villainy after the particle accelerator blew up. Maybe Chrys was the same.  
“Yo, purple rain!”  
Holly whirled, fists ready, but Chrys had the element of surprise. He swung his fist into the side of her face, his knuckles now stained indigo. Elle shouted, running up behind Chrys and attempting to hold him back, but her skinny arms did nothing to stop him. Holly didn’t slow down, ignoring the flashing pain in her cheekbone to ram her shoulder and elbow into his stomach. The blow knocked the wind out of him, and he tumbled to the ground. Holly began to circle. “I don’t want to hurt you, Chrys-”  
“Good, cause you won’t,” he retorted, then took advantage of Holly’s proximity to grab her ankle and shoot a sparking glare right into her eyes.  
Her heart began to race. Her vision blurred. Holly stumbled backward, dizzy, losing grip. Losing her balance. When something caught her behind the knees, she tumbled.  
She was lucky. Seventeen feet below, Barry was struggling to his feet after being double-whammied. He heard Elle’s scream and time slowed down.  
There, above him, between the overpass roads, was a gap. About four feet wide, easily enough for someone to fall through, and Holly was. Elle was leaning over the edge, her mouth open wide with the scream, reaching towards the girl in the blue. Holly wasn’t invincible; a fall that far onto concrete would do serious damage.  
Barry didn’t think. He ran up the incline and leapt, intercepting her halfway through her fall. She was wide-eyed, presumably terrified of hitting the ground.  
They made impact with the concrete while spinning, Barry’s momentum in grabbing her sending them skidding across the asphalt. He paused, checking for anything broken. Holly scrambled to her feet, her knees scuffling across the ground, and took off running in the opposite direction.   
He zoomed around to her, grabbing her shoulders to halt her in her tracks. “Where are you going?” He asked, panicky. The twins were still on the overpass, and Holly was running away?  
Her pupils were pinpoints, eyes so wide he could see the white all around her irises. They seemed greener than usual. He was distracted by them for half a second, and that was all Holly needed.  
Her hands were protected with insulator, and the same for the rest of her body, but she had to escape at whatever cost. She cupped his jawline in her left hand, darting forward to kiss his cheek. She hesitated, the terror subsiding for a moment before she allowed it to beat at her boundaries, and her electric touch snapped the consciousness from him in the blink of an eye.  
Holly’s hands trembled. Barry fell away from her, and Elle’s footsteps echoed down the incline. Chrys must have run.  
That was a good idea.  
She turned on her heel, desperately searching for a place to escape. The houses around the old highway were similarly abandoned. Holly glanced back at her partner’s body on the ground, but the fear drowned any thought other than, “Run!”  
So Holly bolted.

Barry awoke to a splitting headache that nearly made him wish he hadn’t woken up at all. The pain distracted him, for a moment, from the fact that he had no idea where he was. The light was too bright as his eyes opened, but he smelled clean leather and girls’ perfume.  
This was not a place he knew.  
He sat bolt upright- or attempted to. A seat belt had been wrapped over him as he lay in the backseat of someone’s car, and as he moved, it locked painfully, jerking him right back down against the seat.  
“Whoa, there!” A feminine voice soothed him, a silhouette blurred by bright sunshine leaning around the driver’s seat to face him. “You’re okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”  
Funny, he was the one who usually said that. “Where am I?”  
As his eyes adjusted, he could make out the features of the girl in the driver’s seat. A teenage girl with fairylike features, short black hair, and strikingly blue eyes gazed at him in concern. “You’re in my car. You got knocked out somehow.”  
Barry briefly remembered tumbling onto concrete with Holly sharing the impact, skidding across the rough ground. That wasn’t what knocked him out.   
Oh. He was asking the wrong question. “Where’s-” he nearly said her real name- “the Valkyrie?”  
The black-haired girl tensed, her blue eyes clouding over. “Chrys- my brother- he got her. She ran away, and I couldn’t very well follow her and leave you. I’m sorry.”  
“No, it’s okay,” Barry assured her, although he wasn’t entirely sure that it was. “Um- what’s your name?’  
“Elle.”  
“Elle-” he repeated, head pounding as he attempted to devise an alternate plan. The only idea he could think of was a bad one, but there weren’t many options. “You know where S.T.A.R. Labs is, right?”  
“Yeah?”  
“We need to get there. Quickly.”  
Elle hesitated. “Right.”  
The car didn’t move.   
Barry detected the suppressed words between them, but he didn’t need to wait long before she broke the silence. “Chrys cut my fuel line,” Elle grumbled. “I’m only in here so I could hide you.”  
Good for me, Barry thought to himself, unbuckling. “Hold on tight.”  
Not a minute passed before the two of them whooshed into the cortex accompanied by a gust of wind. Barry gently dropped Elle’s feet back on the tile, her balance shifting unsteadily for the moment immediately following.  
Caitlin had halted in her walk to the hall, studying the scene that had materialized before her. “Who’s that?”  
“I’m Elle,” she introduced herself. “Sister of the troublemaker.”  
“Where’s--” he had to pause, too--”the Valkyrie?” Cisco asked, following up as Caitlin approached Elle and studied her youthful face. Despite the polarized hair colors, Chrys and Elle had the same high cheekbones and sparkling blue eyes.  
Barry and Elle glanced at each other, neither answering. Elle hadn’t exactly known the Flash for very long, but she saw something very real in his eyes. Whoever the Valkyrie was, she didn’t deserve to have Chrys’ curse inflicted on her.   
“You’re the same age as your brother,” Caitlin observed absently.  
Elle nodded tersely. “Twins.”  
“You know what he can do,” she assumed.  
Wells leaned forward. “You know how to stop him.”  
Elle’s icy eyes darted from Caitlin to Wells. “Double yes.”  
Barry looked down at Elle, sensing her discomfort. Maybe asking her to turn on her twin brother wasn’t the best idea. She swallowed hard, though, and didn’t panic. “Look us up. Chryses and Ligia Steele.”  
Cisco typed in the names, and a series of articles that mentioned their mother’s death overlapped on the screen. They’d been on a cross-country road trip, happening to be passing through Central City, when the particle accelerator exploded. Their car was thrown off the road, both children hospitalized and the mom killed. Elle had gone silent.  
Barry gritted his teeth. Two children without a mother. It wasn’t fair. He reached up and pulled back the mask before anyone could protest.   
Elle looked up in surprise, her eyes appearing nearly silver for a moment. “We’ll find your brother,” Barry assured her. “We won’t hurt him.”  
“What about your... Valkyrie?” Elle asked.  
Caitlin changed the screens to a map of the city. A violet circle pulsed lightly a few miles south of S.T.A.R. labs, signifying Holly’s location.  
“Save her,” Elle murmured.   
He was gone in a crackle of lightning and wind. Caitlin routinely guided him to where she was, but upon entering her room, he saw no one.  
No pictures decorated the walls, and various items of clothing were strewn over the bed and chair. In the corner was a desk, empty save for a few work-related documents, and beside that, a chest of drawers. The window was open.  
“She’s not here, Caitlin,” Barry said into the comms. “She must have-”  
There. A corner of purple in the edge of a drawer. Barry slowly crossed towards it, ignoring Cait in his ear, and opened the drawer.  
The Valkyrie armor lay, crumpled, inside, the knees and forearms dusty. The gloves were beneath it.  
“Did you find her?” Caitlin asked worriedly.  
“Not exactly,” Barry replied, with more than a little anxiety edging in on his voice. “The suit- she left it here.” He looked around desperately, hoping she’d be lurking in that Holly-ish way at the door, ready with a smirk and a sarcastic comment. She wasn’t. “She’s gone.”

“Ashton Everett?”  
He paused in his walk down the ICU hall, somewhat miffed by Holly’s absence even though she was probably off saving the city. It had to be better than cleaning up after the nightmare-stricken boy who’d literally shit his bed. The voice on the other end of the line was distorted, a sort of echoing following the words. “Who is this?”  
“I need to talk to you. Camera room, upstairs and to the left.”  
Ashton hesitated. “Why should I listen to you?”  
The other end of the line went quiet for a few seconds, and it almost sounded as if the mystery man was scared. “The Valkyrie needs saving.”  
Barely a minute passed before the tall, dark doctor burst into the dark room. A lean figure was silhouetted against the wall of screens, but even then, Ashton recognized him. “Flash?”  
“Dr. Everett,” he replied in that odd buzzing voice. “We have a mutual friend.”  
Holly. Ashton briefly remembered the last time he’d laid eyes on the girl, her cheeks a bit pinker than usual after a whirlwind entrance in the arms of her scarlet-clad partner in crime fighting. The one Ashton was finally meeting. “I was hoping that we’d meet under better circumstances. You know I love a boy in leather.”  
Barry hesitated, caught off guard. Holly hadn’t mentioned- never mind. “Holly’s in trouble.”  
The mood in the small room instantly changed as Ashton straightened. “I was hoping you just said that to get my attention.”  
“She was fighting the guy who’s hurting your patients,” Barry explained. “We lost her.”  
Ashton took a shaky breath. “How could you have lost her?”  
Barry sensed his anger, but there was more than just that in his voice. There was fear. “I’m sorry.”  
“Not as sorry as you will be if you don’t get her back.”  
Protective. That’s what the missing element was.  
“I’ll handle that. I’m here because I need your help,” Barry continued. “Before he got her, she wanted to create an antidote. She didn’t have the time to work on it, but I get the feeling she had the right idea.”  
“So you want me to work on the cure?” Ashton asked. “What’s even wrong with them?”  
“She mentioned night terrors and anxiety attacks. Start there.”  
Ashton took a step forward, the blueish light casting a cold light on his features. “I’ll give it a shot. But let me tell you, Flash,” he paused, taking another long stride forward, “if she’s hurt in any way because you couldn’t protect her, not even you’ll be fast enough to run from me.”

Caitlin and Cisco sat at their workstations in silence- usually, it would have been comfortable, but they were on a mission. Holly had left her phone on the lab table before going to fight Chrys, so tracking it was a moot point. She’d effectively ditched any and all methods of tracking her down.  
Now the Valkyrie suit lay over the back of one of the chairs, Holly’s favorite scrubs on the ground beside it, and a strange quiet had settled over the lab in the absence of Barry and Holly’s bickering. Even throwing punches would have been welcome at that point, however destructive it might have been. But Holly had to be with them to fight, and she was nowhere to be found.  
Caitlin’s computer pinged quietly, and before her eyes a list of Holly’s clock-ins over the past year appeared onscreen. No luck as far as tracking her today, but her curiosity pulled her onwards. She scrolled down, scanning the dates, noting that before Holly donned her superhero identity she worked ungodly hours. Except…  
“Cisco, look at this,” she said, interrupting the silence. “Holly always worked sixteen, maybe more, hours at a time except for two weeks in December of last year where she only showed up for a few hours at a time at all hours of the night.”  
Cisco read the punch-in schedule over her shoulder and understood what Caitlin was so interested in. “Those were the two weeks after the accelerator blew up.”  
“That’s not all,” she continued, switching windows. “During those two weeks, there were thirteen unexpected deaths at Farraday. Patients who should have been out of the woods suddenly flatlined.”  
“So what?” Cisco asked, shaking his head slightly. “The explosion hurt a lot of people, thirteen who were already in the hospital makes sense.”  
“That’s what I thought,” Caitlin agreed. “But there’s one coincidence too many. Guess who was the head doctor on each of those patients?”  
Cisco drew his brows together in concern. “Are you saying she killed them?”  
Caitlin’s eyes widened. “No! I’m just-”  
“She wouldn’t.”  
“No.”  
Silence uncomfortably settled over both of them at the thoughts neither wanted. Their resident war goddess had worked her way into their lives with a sarcastic clapback and a whipping ponytail of black hair. Somewhere beneath the cool exterior, there were the details; remembering the team’s coffee orders, folding her uniform herself, always watching Barry’s back. Tiny things. And, of course, the things she never said. Everyone had those.  
“Here’s CCTV from outside Dr. Southerland’s apartment-”  
Caitlin frowned. “Dr. Southerland?”  
“Ashton,” Cisco explained. “Footage from the night the particle accelerator went kaboom.”  
Caitlin’s frown didn’t leave her face, only deepened. “What are you looking for?”  
Cisco remained quiet for a moment, allowing the video to load before him. Onscreen, an empty parking lot appeared, lights flickering. As he fast-forwarded through the night, cars zoomed in and out, the sun set, the concrete became ghostly beneath illuminated circles. Until a certain gray FJ Cruiser appeared in the lot and Ashton appeared.  
“That.” Cisco slowed the footage to its normal speed again, watching carefully as Ashton turned to the backseat. He pulled the door open and violet light poured out, some combination of smoke and fire, bright enough to make him recoil. After a moment, he dove inside the backseat and spent a moment collecting the source of the glow. He reappeared with a younger Holly in his arms.  
She was screaming. The glow was dancing over every part of her body, playing on the contours of her face and flaring over her gloved fingers. It was hard to tell, but it looked like she was crying, too. Ashton settled her into a better position and hurried inside, her body tucked into his arms. She was giving off more power than they’d ever seen her use. A trail of violet-blue light followed her and Ashton into the building.  
Somehow, seeing the brutal reality of what the explosion did to Holly changed everything. She hadn’t magically been granted her powers, or woken up safely ten months later in a high-tech lab. It had hurt her. It had ripped away everything she knew herself to be in the blink of an eye and made her something entirely new. Entirely unknown.  
After a few seconds of dead silence, Caitlin cleared her throat stiffly. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if she wasn’t on our side?”  
All the hours of working side by side with her, days spent artfully crafting the Valkyrie uniform, the months they’d spent beside her; they were all the most unlikely outcome. Following that video, the aftermath just as easily could have been a villainous girl with her life torn away that landed herself in the pipeline or worse.  
The cortex was too quiet. As the sunset faded, the glow on the silvery fabric of the Valkyrie suit dimmed. With the light went the chances of catching the lost girl.  
“Come on, Holly,” Caitlin whispered, too quietly for even Cisco to hear her. “Come home.”

Wherever Holly was, she didn’t hear her prayer. Days passed. Maybe she had slipped just out of reach. Maybe she wouldn’t ever come back.  
Elle perched on the lab table, watching the lab lay empty. The Flash had been called out a few times since the fight with Chrys, but his heart wasn’t in it. He came back and scanned through a hundred security cameras searching for the black-haired girl. They had no luck.  
No luck for eighty-nine hours.   
Their initial mission-- not sleeping until they found her-- had crumbled around hour fifty-six. Elle had kept track. She slept in catnaps, and since the team had insisted upon keeping their eyes on her at all times, she couldn’t exactly leave to help with the search.  
It was eight o’clock on a Thursday morning when the S.T.A.R. Labs security breach alarms woke everyone up. Cisco had been on watch, but he’d dozed off back around hour eighty-five. He sat bolt upright, firing off a prepared text to Caitlin, Barry, and Wells that read “SOS”.  
[ BARRY ]: where are you cait  
[ CAITLIN ]: home  
Approximately thirty seconds later, Barry whooshed into the cortex with a rumpled, sleepy Caitlin in his arms. He set her down gently, the transition easy after having practiced it with Holly so many times. “Cisco, what’s going on?”  
Wells whirred in, apparently having never left the lab. He, too, appeared a little worse for wear. They all did. “It’s Chrys,” he informed them solemnly. “And our first line of defense is currently AWOL.”  
First line of defense, Caitlin thought, wondering why that turn of phrase seemed so odd. It was probably just her sleep-addled mind.  
Elle hopped off the counter and started for the door.  
“Whoa,” Barry protested, putting a hand on her shoulder. “What are you doing?”  
Elle lifted her head and set her shoulders. “I’m getting my brother back. None of you are going to stop me.” She put her eyes on Wells and took a deep breath. “I’m your new first line of defense. He’s my brother, he’s my problem.”  
He nodded in respect for her. Suddenly, she looked far older than her age. There was a wisdom beyond her years in those brilliant blue eyes.  
As she left, Barry realized that the familiarity he’d sensed in her was still nagging at him. She glanced back for a moment, eyes shining impossibly silver.  
“Caitlin, did you ever get a blood sample from her?” He asked suddenly.  
Caitlin headed for her workstation. “Yes, but I never checked up on it. I’m not sure why it matters, considering…”  
After she trailed off, Cisco nudged her on. “Considering what?”  
Caitlin shook her head in disbelief. “She’s a metahuman, too. Completely different properties. It’s like she and her brother are the reverse of each other.”  
“Maybe she can stop him,” Barry murmured hopefully, eyes glued to the security cameras in anticipation.

Elle walked with purpose. In the light of the mid-morning stood her twin brother, hardly himself anymore. His golden hair was matted and dirty, shirt torn in more than a few places. Her heart hurt to see him like that.  
“Chrys, what the hell are you doing?” She demanded, continuing towards him.  
He whirled on her, recognition flaring in his eyes. “Elle?”  
“Yeah, Elle. The one who’s trying to stop you from becoming a murderer.” She stopped before him, shaking her head disapprovingly. “Do you even see what you’ve become?”  
Chrys almost paused. The gold shine to his eyes almost faded to blue again. The happy ending almost went on.  
There were one too many almosts.  
“Obviously the only one of us with half a brain,” he snapped, running towards her.  
The girl darted aside, using her speed and smaller size to her advantage. “You’re becoming a monster.”  
Chrys stood upright again, shaking his head disapprovingly. “And you’re becoming stupid.” He began circling her, both of them fully charged with energy. “Don’t you see that these lab rats are using you? They caught the Flash and Valkyrie and now they’re coming for you.”  
“They’re heroes,” she replied. “I’d give a lot to be a hero.”  
In her moment of thought, he lunged, taking her to the ground with him. They rolled, Elle fighting for escape and Chrys for victory.  
Barry appeared in a crackle of electricity, prying the two of them off of each other. In his hand was the antidote Ashton had crafted, and he hoped it was as potent as he needed it to be. If it wasn’t, he was kind of screwed.  
His hand found Chrys’ neck.  
“Strangling is one thing. A headlock is another,” Holly explained, guiding Barry’s hand to her neck. “Once you get your fingers on his jugular, he’s yours. At least if you play your cards right.”  
She released his wrist. He let his hand drop and her leather-clad fingers found a place on his pulse point. “Ready?” He asked, but she was already moving, spinning. Her arm twisted around his neck and squeezed so tightly he couldn’t breathe.  
“See?” She asked, and he thought he heard a smile in her voice. “Nothing like strangling.”  
Chrys was too slow. Barry spun like Holly, and in the blink of an eye, Chrys was clawing at his throat and trying to pry Barry off of him. Elle scuttled back and away.  
Barry inserted the needle and injected Chrys with whatever potion Ashton had mixed up to save him. The boy gasped, becoming more desperate. After a few seconds, he went limp.  
Barry let go, and that was the end of the fight. He really should have handled that empathy problem. As soon as Barry’s grip loosened, Chrys ducked out from the chokehold and began to whirl on him, eyes practically sparking with fire. He was prepared to deliver a dose of nightmares so powerful it could have killed him in an instant.  
At least, if it weren’t for the perfectly timed tackle from out of nowhere.  
Barry hit the concrete hard, tangled with someone else. He saw stars after a collision like that. A leather glove fell over his eyes, and whoever had saved him made sure he didn’t screw up their handiwork. If his eyes were closed, he couldn’t see Chrys’ vengeance. Not to mention the advantage of reorientation after getting floored.  
The distraction gave Elle time to make her move. She advanced on Chrys, throwing her arms around him in a quite determined and one-sided bear hug. And he might have continued to fight her off if it weren’t for the drugs taking effect.  
“You aren’t a monster, Chrys,” Elle said. “You’re my brother. You always were the better of the pair of us, and I’m not letting that end now. Now we can be superheroes instead of streetrats. You can make people believe in greater things if you stopped destroying for one moment and tried to save somebody.”  
The golden glow in the boy’s eyes began to fade as he understood. Before he could speak, he passed out, a result of Ashton’s antidote.  
Barry found the hand over his eyes lifted. The first thing he saw was the deep blue of an ocean in the early morning, just a touch of purple, even and stable. A hoodie.  
“Holly?” He asked, voice raw from the hit.  
She recoiled at the noise, scurrying back like a spooked animal. As his eyes readjusted, he could tell she was shivering, but he couldn’t tell why.  
“Is that her?” Elle asked, approaching from behind.  
Holly lashed out, swinging a foot out and around to knock Elle to the concrete, before getting to her feet again and beginning to retreat. This time, though, Barry didn’t plan on letting her go.  
“Hey, hey,” he said gently, reaching towards her. Though her expression was hidden beneath the hood, he could tell she was honed in on his voice, waiting. She stopped moving altogether. Watching. Waiting.  
He stood, still extending a hesitant hand. “You’re scared, I know. But I think you also remember a few things. Like how the people inside this building aren’t going to hurt you. And how you have lots of people wishing you would come back to them.” One step forward. She didn’t run. “Come with me.”  
Her reply wasn’t in words. She silently weighed his offer in her mind, then took his offered hand. He felt an unusual and unexpected swell of pride at that small gesture. For some reason, she heard him.  
Barry led her inside, her grip tight but not viselike. He wanted to get her to Cait as fast as possible, but zooming her upstairs might not have been the best plan in her state. She didn’t say a word.  
Upon entering the cortex, it seemed everyone released a breath they’d been holding for days. Caitlin prepared the antidote as Barry helped Holly onto the medical cot, although the act was mostly uncalled for. She wasn’t letting go of his hand anyway.  
When Caitlin returned with the syringe of silvery fluid, Holly leaned back on the cot. The hood slid off. Her face was tearstreaked and dirty, eyes rimmed in dark circles, leftover grease paint doing little to hide her identity anymore.  
While the drug took effect, Cisco helped Elle carry Chrys back to the cortex. “A simple overdose of his own power,” Caitlin diagnosed. “Like taking one too many painkillers. He’ll be himself again when he wakes up,” she assured Elle, who dove into her arms at that answer.  
Barry smiled from the medical room, still holding Holly’s hand even though she’d begun returning to her normal state a few minutes ago. “Happy endings never get old.”  
Holly swallowed hard. “I’m not happy. I’m exhausted.”  
“I can get you back to your apartment-”  
“Are Brooke and Ashton there?” She demanded, tensing up suddenly. Her eyes grew wild again. “I can’t see them right now, I just can’t,” she pleaded.  
Barry shook his head. “I think Brooke is with a friend and Ashton’s at his place. The apartment’s empty.”  
Holly’s eyes darted up to the happy ending Barry had referred to. Even Wells seemed satisfied. “I want to go home.”

It took them longer than either would have liked to escape the lab, with Caitlin begging to watch Holly overnight and Wells advising the pair of them not to be hasty with her recovery. Eventually, though, Holly was unlocking the door to her shared apartment and walking in with leaden feet.  
“Welcome to my humble abode,” she quipped half-heartedly, turning left into her bedroom and collapsing on the mattress.  
Barry waited for a dismissal. None came.  
After a minute had slipped through their fingers, Holly lifted her head from the bed. “Are you waiting for an engraved invitation or something?”  
He hurried inside, feeling oddly fragile in the foreign space. He’d only been there when he’d tracked down the Valkyrie suit, and that didn’t really count, because that time Holly hadn’t been there and she certainly hadn’t been pulling her shirt off.  
“Whoa,” he hissed, turning away.  
“What’s your damage, speedster?” She inquired sharply. “I’m pretty sure you’ve seen a girl in a sports bra before.” After a brief pause in which he still didn’t turn around, Holly stopped, jeans tugged halfway down her legs. Real concern in her voice, she asked, “You have, right?”  
“Yes,” Barry replied. He turned around, despite how reluctant he was to do it. She was made like a Greek goddess, built muscular yet lithe, almost ballerina-like. As she turned away, the light struck the scar beneath her right ribs in just the right way. He remembered how he’d discovered her identity, her bloody injury, and stepped forward in concern. “Your scar-”  
“Is healing fine,” she assured him. “You’re like the mom I never had.”  
He ignored the jab and nearly touched the puckered skin where she’d been hurt. Touching Holly without her express permission never ended well. But this time was different-- maybe thanks to the situation. She took hold of his wrist and guided his fingers to the injured area.  
The air seemed thinner while he was touching her. Holly would never have admitted to it, but she held her breath. He was gentle, like she’d break if he lingered too long, and she’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be fragile. The area where she’d been wounded was sensitive, but not painful, and somehow every inch of her felt that delicate when there was a possibility of Barry touching her.  
He pulled away, and she breathed. “You’re right, you’re healing fine,” he agreed.  
“I’m a doctor, dumbass,” she deadpanned, heading into the bathroom. “I’ve got Netflix, cue it up.”  
By the time she got out of her short shower, he was halfway through an episode of the X-Files he’d already seen three times. She joined him on her double bed, leaning against the back wall for support. She laughed at a few of the jokes, even though Barry was pretty sure she was lost in terms of plot. And at the beginning of the second episode, her head drooped onto his shoulder. When he looked over, he realized her breaths were now slow and even, eyes closed in well-deserved sleep.  
He didn’t outlast her by much. By the time the afternoon sun blazed through the window in the living room, the pair of them were fast asleep, halfway under the covers of her bed and halfway sprawled above. Their long legs were tangled together, but neither cared in their dreams. Holly was curled safely under Barry’s arm. It had been too long since either had gotten any real rest, and they would enjoy it even if it meant it was with each other.  
If either woke up at any point between that day and the next, they would deny it to the end of the earth.


	11. tick tick boom

“I’m glad you invited Caitlin and Cisco,” Iris said with a bright smile, leaning on the bar beside Barry.

“They’re cool, right?” He agreed, losing his ability to look away from her. He clearly remembered how, even under a drunken haze, Iris was gorgeous.

A drunken haze he sorely missed.

She looked up at the table where the trio of scientists stood; a laughing Caitlin, a grimacing Cisco (who’d obviously just taken a shot), and a sniggering Holly who covered her mouth with one hand. “They saved your life, Barry. That makes them the coolest people I’ve ever met.” She tilted her head in thought. “Holly’s really cute, too,” Iris prompted, running her finger around the lip of her shot glass.

After a moment of pause in which Iris kept her teasing gaze on Barry, he realized what she was alluding to and made a face. “What? No-”

“You don’t think she’s pretty?”

A sinking feeling caught hold of him as he realized he’d been backed into a corner. “Wait, what? Yeah, of course she is, but it’s not like that. We’re just friends.”

Iris smirked, then took a shot. She grimaced for a second, but the look of displeasure was soon replaced by a glowing smile. “To friends, then. Old and new.”

They toasted, and then Iris was off to take her turn at the dartboard. The giggle in her voice as she teased Eddie about the game made Barry’s heart ache. Instead of lingering on that for too long, though, he picked up his sad little tray of shots and approached the table where Caitlin and Cisco sat.

“Guys,” he began, “I have a problem.”

“We all do when guys like him exist,” Cisco deadpanned, staring enviously at Eddie.

Caitlin sighed uncharacteristically, eyes glued to Eddie’s ridiculously attractive form as he challenged Iris to beat him. “Yeah, he’s so hot,” she gushed, then straightened, realizing what she’d said. She whipped back around to face the others, scrambling to explain her lapse in detachment. “I mean, genetically speaking. Because I’m a geneticist, of course-” she paused, hazel eyes widening a bit in realization. “Oh my god, do I sound like Felicity?”

As Iris narrowly missed a bullseye shot, Holly turned back to the table and tuned in, hearing the tail end of their conversation. She visibly perked up at the name as she reached for one of the glasses on Barry’s little tray. “Where’s Felicity?” 

“I’m not talking about Eddie,” Barry said, ignoring Caitlin’s comment and eyeing the glass Holly had chosen. “I’m talking about this.”

In barely a second, the tray of shots before him had been downed, including the one in Holly’s hand. “I don’t feel  _ anything _ .”

Cisco chuckled. “Yeah, that’s usually what happens when you drink too much.”

“You took my tequila,” Holly grumbled.

Barry hesitated, eyes catching on Holly-- specifically the butter knife on the bar table that was much too close to her gloved hand for him to relax. As terrifying as that glare was, he had another issue to address. “No, the alcohol is not affecting me. I mean I literally feel nothing.”

‘It’s your hyper-metabolism,” Caitlin concluded, sounding altogether too excited as she began digging in her purse and chirped, “I need a sample.”

“I’ll get more shots,” Cisco volunteered.

“Don’t let heavyweight here suck ‘em all down,” Holly reminded him, still vaguely pissed off about losing her shot.

Caitlin sighed shortly, rummaging even deeper into her purse. She was nibbling her lower lip in determination. ”I swear, I had a Vacutainer here.”

The metahumans exchanged a glance, the malice nearly disappearing from Holly’s expression before Barry’s eyes. “Wait, you carry a blood collection kit in your purse?” He asked Caitlin.

“You have your hobbies,” she said unabashedly, and it was an appropriate callout for a man who spent his time between catching criminals in a lab and in a red suit.

Two rounds (and twenty-six shots for Barry) later, two of the drinkers were buzzed and the third was growing ever more disappointed. After Cisco’s wince faded, he took in Barry’s solemn expression. “Still nothing?”

“I can’t get drunk,” he stated bleakly, growing more upset by the second. “I mean, I’m only twenty-five, and my drinking days are already over.”

There was a brief pause as Barry grieved his loss. “Well, at least you don’t need to worry about getting carded at the bar anymore,” Holly supplied, only earning herself a disapproving glower. It didn’t seem to faze her, though, since she just smirked and sipped her beer.

“Come on, Allen,” Eddie called from across the room. “You’re up.”

No sooner had he spoken the words that his phone went off, and by the look on his face he hadn’t received a party invitation. “There was a bombing on 8th and Pass,” he informed them all, then turned to Iris. “I gotta go, babe.”

While Iris enunciated her goodbyes as well, Holly was already disappearing towards the bathroom. She didn’t bother excusing herself.

As she walked, Barry imagined having to wait for her to change. Someone could die in the amount of time it took for her to get the damn thing over her head. 

It wasn’t like the grease paint hid her identity that well anyway.

In ten seconds or less, the two of them stood at the base of the skyscraper that was beginning to blaze. At least, they did for a moment.

“Shit,” Holly hissed, cradling her right arm against her body. One hand crept up to inspect her shoulder. For a moment, her face was pale and slack with pain, but that only remained for a moment before rage twisted her expression. “You dislocated my  _ fucking  _ shoulder, you pisswad!”

He opened his mouth to answer, although he wasn’t entirely sure what he could say to avoid getting another ass-beating, but above them safety cords started snapping. They both looked up to find the source; a man dangling from a cleaning deck at least ten stories up. 

“I have to--” he began, only for her to interrupt.

“Go. Yeah, I know. Save the world, douchebag.”

He couldn’t help but feel, as he watched her stalk off, like he’d lost more than a partner. She didn’t look back.

Another wire snapped above him, and he had to make the hero’s decision. He let her go.

Holly heard him start talking to the team over the comms, but the throbbing pain through her entire right side made his voice seem faraway and muted. She made it back out onto the street and paused to call an Uber, but the second her phone was out of her pocket, someone slammed into her. The phone went flying, splashing into the gutter with a sickening _ ker-plunk _ . 

Words exploded from her mouth before she could even think, an impressive string of curses only interrupted by the delayed wall of pain from the collision. Holly stumbled back, crashing against a wall facing away from the blazing building. So much was going on at once-- the pain, the anger, the rush of blood in her ears, the panicking crowd of civilians gawking at the disaster high above them. A familiar twinge of blue altered her vision, threatening to send her into a tailspin like that time at the hospital, and this time there was no one to drag her home before she melted down. 

_ Focus. Feel that pain? That’s your body telling you that, right or wrong, you’re still alive. You don’t want to die, do you? You’re hurting because you’re human. That’s good. You’re breathing. You’re not just alive, you’re pissed off and powerful. Control the energy. Hold it tight. You’re-- _

“Holly?”

She snapped her head up, vision still a little blurry from the pain. A familiar face loomed before her in the fog. Squinting, Holly grunted, “Iris?”

“Oh my god,” the other girl breathed, hurrying towards her new friend. She must have looked a mess, wind having whipped her hair and clothes into a mess and cradling her arm like an infant. “What happened? How did you get here so quickly?”

_ Barry took me! You know he’s the Flash, right? Pretty damn fast. Oh, and did I mention I’m the Valkyrie? _

“Uber,” she said flatly.

“What happened to your arm?” Iris asked, delicate fingers hovering just above where the humeral head had separated from the glenoid cavity enough to put Holly in an extremely bad mood (and a lot of pain). 

Holly took a shallow breath in through her nose, teeth gritted in an ineffective attempt to dull the throbbing in her arm. She briefly relived the skidding stop, the look on Barry’s face when he realized he’d hurt her, her own scathing voice berating him for it. Pain smothered her remorse. “Some asshole in red dislocated it.”

Iris put a hand between Holly’s shoulder blades and began to walk her back to… somewhere. Holly wasn’t quite clearminded enough to deduce where, but if Barry trusted Iris, then she had to be clever. She allowed herself to be led down an alley, where Iris suddenly stopped.

A very profane thought darted through Holly’s mind, something about beating the ass of an alleywalker even with a fucked up arm, but it was replaced with an even worse impulse when she raised her eyes. 

There stood Mr. Barry Allen, standing stock-still and staring at the pair of women. After a pointed look from Holly from Iris back to him, he began to… vibrate his face? She wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing, but it concealed his identity even better than the mask. After a long moment in which Holly was sure Iris had recognized him, he dashed off, static electricity clinging to Holly’s silky shirt. 

“That was him!” Iris marveled. “That was the Flash, right in front of us!”

Holly looked over her shoulder in the direction of S.T.A.R. Labs, chest tightening uncomfortably. “Something tells me he’s gonna remember us.”

 

The breath was crushed out of Barry’s lungs as the full weight of Holly came crashing down on top of him. His arm was twisted up his back, pinned there by her knee. It felt like the girl was made solely of bone and muscle.

“Say it again,” she hissed.

He winced as more pressure was applied to his twisted arm. “I’m heartbreakingly stupid.”

“With feeling.”

She almost sounded bored with him. He didn’t like the feeling. He took a deep (well, as deep as he could, with her constricting his ribcage) breath in and shouted, “I’m heartbreakingly, devastatingly stupid!”

After a moment’s pause, she rolled off him, coming to rest on the mat beside him. Her long legs were crossed like a child’s. “I’ll accept that, I guess,” she relented, fiddling with some loose thread on her sling. The navy and white contrasted with her black sparring gear, but only having the use of one arm hadn’t impaired her ability to whoop him. “You know, my first riflery teacher taught me a little mantra I think could help you out.” Reciting from memory, she said, “Stay low, run fast.” At that, she nudged her breathless partner. If he had bothered to turn over, he’d have caught the half-blush in her cheeks that wasn’t due to the workout. “Shoot first, die last. One shot, one kill.”

Barry didn’t seem to be listening, his gaze fixated on Holly’s long fingers at rest on the mat beside her. And he really wasn’t listening; instead, he was thinking the spaces between her fingers were where his could fit perfectly.

Then her hand was swiftly moving, resting on the side of Barry’s head as her thumb swiped away a droplet of sweat from his temple. That sure as hell got his attention again. “No luck, just skill,” she finished, then seemed to realize her hand had lingered. She pulled it back, but her fingers brushed his jawline as she did so. 

Barry sat up, and as Holly looked back down at her drumming, gloved fingers again, the light struck her cheekbone at a perfect angle and revealed the thin, faded scar usually hidden by her hair. It was barely noticeable unless he really looked, sloping down the outside of her face for about an inch or two before fading back into the olive tones of her healthy skin. 

“What’s that scar from?” He inquired before he could think better of the request.

Holly self-consciously raised a hand to her face, fingers tracing the scar, knowing exactly its location. Her lips parted slightly, as if to form an answer, but closed again a moment later. After a moment of tense silence, she stood. “C’mon, partner. We’ve got a bombing woman to catch.”

Barry accepted that if were ever to receive an answer, he wasn’t to get it yet. He took her outstretched hand and stood beside her, following her lead up the narrow iron staircase. As they ascended, their hands collided with their matching strides. Even though she was still wearing her gloves, Barry felt as if she was shocking him with every touch.

The pair entered the cortex in step. Weeks had passed since they’d been flung together by necessity, and the original uneasy alliance had shifted into a comfortable one. Cisco was hard at work on the Valkyrie uniform, outfitting it with a built-in brace to compensate for Holly’s shoulder injury. In addition, now the silver Tevlon was flatteringly tapered down the front, a matching triangle of the material covering her upper back and shoulder blades. It was bordered by a slightly reflective ribbon of indigo, which Cisco claimed would control and suppress Holly’s bursts of power until she learned to better wield them. She still insisted on wearing her gloves, though, however beat up they were becoming. 

“Nice redesign, Cisco,” Holly congratulated him as she entered. “I’m really loving the triangle thing. Covers vital organs and looks like hell on wheels.”

He smirked proudly as the woman came to stand at his side and admire the twin suits beside each other. The crimson of the Flash and the azure of the Valkyrie, independent and allied. “I’m working on something else too, for once you get a handle on your powers. I think I’m going to call them ‘the gauntlets’.”

Holly screwed up her nose. “Kinda geeky.”

Cisco’s expression morphed into one of pure, true betrayal. “And to imagine that for a minute, I thought you were cool.”

Holly snorted, about to say more, but was interrupted when Caitlin and Wells reentered. “How’s it coming on the training, Dr. Stormcipher?” Wells asked.

Holly glanced towards Barry, smirking. “He’s not entirely defenseless.”

“Ah. Well, at least there’s progress,” Wells jabbed, causing both Cisco and Holly to snicker to themselves. “And our femme fatale?”

Barry shook his head. “Sorry, but CCPD’s been ordered off the case.”

“Wait, what?” Holly asked, grin fading, at the same time as Caitlin asked, “Well, who has the power to do that.”

Barry shook his head, as hungry for answers as they were. “The army. Some General. His name was Eiling, I think--”

“General Wade Eiling,” Wells interrupted, a haunted expression replacing his typical detached exterior. Seeing him with his guard down unsettled Holly, although she couldn’t entirely place why.

“You know him?”

Wells launched into the story of his partnership with General Eiling, but Holly tuned out after ‘mind reading capabilities’. Her phone was softly buzzing in her purse across the room, and she was willing to bet on who was calling. Just like always, same time, same day. She made no move to answer the phone and made a mental note to delete whatever voicemail would be left for her.

“Our girl’s name is Bette Sans Souci, EOD specialist for the army,” Cisco informed them. 

“EOD?” Caitlin asked.

In sync, Holly and Cisco replied, “Bombs.”

“That’s so creepy,” Caitlin muttered to herself, glancing up at the pair of them.

“Address?” Holly asked, to which Cisco replied, “Hold on. One person, in case of emergency.”

After a short pause, he looked up. “Cameron Scott. Tanglewood.”

A sharp breeze whipped through the room, and no one needed to turn around to know that Barry was gone. Holly fingered her sling absently, and Caitlin eyed the nervous tic as an idea began to blossom in her mind.

“Holly, what exactly was the diagnosis on your shoulder?” She asked in her notoriously creative tone of voice.

Holly blinked a few times, clearing her head. “Severe humoral subluxation.”

Cisco’s brows raised. He shot Dr. Wells a look that clearly exhibited his confusion. Wells opened his mouth to reply to the engineer, but Holly beat him to the punch without turning around. Her eyes still glued to the location monitor, she explained, “For those in the non-medical field, that means I dislocated my shoulder. Badly.”

Cisco snapped his fingers. “Thank you.”

Holly was about to smile when the pulsing scarlet circle that denoted Barry’s location went out. Any joy in her expression was buried as she turned away from the screen and made a beeline for the computers. “Where’d he go? What happened to him?”

“Barry?” Caitlin said into the comms. “Can you hear me? Barry?”

“I’m gonna kick your ass if you die on me, speedster,” Holly added, her fingers sparking in iridescent blue. 

“There must be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he’s not answering,” Caitlin intoned, rising from her chair. Her voice seemed even, but the urgency in her steps gave away her fear. If that hadn’t been obvious enough, she, too, called Barry’s name into the comms with more than a little panic.

As soon as Holly was about to make an even more colorful threat, he reappeared, a little less modestly than how he’d departed. The shy kid went straight for the S.T.A.R. Labs sweatshirts, but it didn’t take a genius to see the lightning-borne muscle tone usually hidden beneath a sweater and.or flannel. 

“Uh…” Cisco deadpanned.

Before he could get a word out, Barry ducked his head into a sweatshirt and (unfortunately) pulled it on. “Don’t ask.”

Completely contrary to what Barry had wanted, Cisco persisted. “I’m gonna ask. Where’s my suit?”

Barry glanced towards Holly, almost as if to communicate that he needed her backup if Cisco jumped the desk and decked him.

He totally didn’t.

“It’s… gone.”

Voice dangerously even, Cisco demanded, “What do you  _ mean _ , it’s gone? What did you do with my suit?”

“It blew up, dude,” Barry confessed matter-of-factly. “I managed to get out of it before it went… kaboom.”

_ Kaboom is right, _ Holly thought to herself, only half listening.

“My suit went ‘kaboom’?” Cisco asked incredulously.

“Fun fact about Bette Sans Souci,” Barry began, “She’s not carrying bombs. She touched the emblem on the suit and it turned  _ into _ a bomb.” Fully knowing the weight of the next few words, Barry concluded, “She’s a metahuman.”

“With the ability to cause spontaneous combustion upon tactile contact,” Wells mused.

Holly was still conspicuously eyeing Barry’s… well, not his face, and he looked over his shoulder at her to ask, “What?”

“Hm?” She responded reflexively, eyes darting up to meet his. “Oh. Nothing. I just… really didn’t see that coming.”

“Spontaneous combustion?” He attempted to clarify.

“Your abs.”

For once oblivious to the flirtation, Cisco was still not over his loss. “She  _ blew up  _ my suit!”

Caitlin made a face. “You have, like, three more!”

“Okay, I have two, and I loved that one.”

“What else do we know about her?” Wells asked, the voice of reason amidst the chaos of a mourning supersuit builder and Holly’s thoughts of granting Barry sexcapader status.

“I don’t know, she’s pure  _ evil _ ,” Cisco began, voice shaking with fury. “We’re gonna find this girl and send her butt into the pipeline. No one blows my tech to smithereens and gets away with it--”

An image of the woman Barry had encountered in her military uniform appeared.

“-- Unless she looks like that,” Cisco corrected himself.

It was true; Bette Sans Souci was a beautiful woman, flame-haired and striking. All eyes were on her photograph.

Except perhaps Holly’s, who was ready for Barry when he turned around and saw her holding up a piece of paper that read “10/10” in thick black marker.

He smiled to himself, turning back to face the screen, and with no one watching her, Holly did, too. She was definitely going to remember that little sneak peek.

“Right, Barry?”

Wells’ voice was somewhat sharp, and Barry wondered how many times they’d tried to get his attention. “I don’t think she meant to hurt me,” he supplied, attempting to cover for himself.

“Well, her being a metahuman explains General Eiling’s interest in her,” Wells agreed. 

“And why he stole the case from us,” Barry added.

“He didn’t want anyone to know what she could do,” a fresh voice intoned from behind the quintet.

The crew of scientists/doctors/flirtatious idiots with degrees turned to see none other than Joe West himself standing in the doorway. His eyes skimmed over them-- Cisco admiring Bette’s photograph, Caitlin’s lithe form behind Wells’ wheelchair, Barry leaning on the countertop, and the black-haired, sharp-eyed woman swiveling around in her chair to see him. His gaze lingered on her-- the one face he didn’t recognize.

“Oh,” Barry said dumbly, realizing he’d never introduced them. “Joe, this is… Holly.”

Holly smirked and stood, her chin raised slightly, like she was hiding something that had amused her. “Nice to finally meet you, Detective,” she greeted him, extending a hand towards Barry’s adoptive father. He took one look at her black leather gloves and the mysterious glint in her dark eyes and concluded, “The Valkyrie?”

“One and only,” she confirmed, the smirk blooming into half a smile. “Tell anyone and I’ll kill you,” Holly joked, but the threat was still very much viable.

As she shook his hand, Joe nodded in approval at something beyond her. “Nice to meet you, too, Holly.”

She turned back towards Cisco and Caitlin. “How’d she become a metahuman?”

“She’s a soldier. According to this, she was injured in the line of duty and sent back to the States to recover.” Cisco craned his neck to look back at Holly. “Doesn’t say why.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Bets on roadside bombs?”

As Joe caught Barry’s eye, discreetly pointed at Holly, and mouthed, “I like her.”

Barry smiled, thinking, “Me too,” but said nothing. 

“So, human bomb,” Joe resumed, “must be Tuesday in Central City.”

“Holly, can you help me out in the lab?” Cisco asked as his tablet pinged. “I need your magic fingers.”

Holly smirked and pushed off the counter after him. “Magic fingers at your service.”

She followed her friend into the lab and took his tablet as he slid it over to her. “Bette Sans Souci isn’t evil, we know that much. I think we need to help her out.”

“Agreed,” Holly said, scooping up Cisco’s tablet. “The problem still remains-- how do you help a girl with more power than she can control who doesn’t seem to want your assistance?”

Cisco glanced up at her a little less than subtly. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

Holly paused, meeting his eyes with confusion as her mind caught onto his allusion. “You mean me?”

Was it really not obvious to her? Cisco explained anyway.“Yeah. Uber-powerful badass chick, doesn’t want help, afraid to get close to people--”

Holly’s eyes sharpened. Cisco backtracked before he received the brunt of her displeasure.

“--is ridiculously hot, too smart for her own good.”

Her gaze lightened, and Cisco could breathe again.

“I think that sounds a bit familiar. So I was hoping that, maybe, you’d be able to point us in the right direction as one of her kind.”

“Her kind?”

“Gorgeous badass ladies,” Cisco clarified.

“Ah.”

Relieved to have survived his pitch in one piece, Cisco gestured to the tablet. “Here’s the information I gathered on her.”

Holly scanned the facts and figured before side eyeing Cisco critically. “Where’d you get this crap, Wikipedia?” 

When Cisco didn’t have an answer for her and stood speechless, Holly rolled her eyes and began to type. Or, more accurately, she attempted to-- the gloves inhibited the keypad from picking up her fingerprints, and, frustrated, she pulled them off and tried again. Within moments, she’d assembled new data about their mystery woman-- from first person.

Tweets from @bombshellsouci, one hundred and thirty six Instagram posts by @sgtbette, and various other social networks, all displaying the personality of the explosive metahuman.

“Her last status was posted to Facebook three weeks before the particle accelerator went kaboom,” Holly informed him, “she was touring Iraq. Took a selfie with a disabled roadside bomb.” Holly laughed, truly, the sound still foreign and fantastic. “See? Told you it was roadside bombs.”

The sound of rushing air interrupted her celebration, and she looked up to see that Barry had gone. She frowned in confusion. “Where’s he off to?”

“Don’t know,” Cisco replied honestly.

Holly shrugged. “Meh. Probably going to make out with Iris.”

“I ship it,” Cisco muttered.

“Me too,” Holly agreed.

She’d never met Iris, but she’d heard the way Barry gushed about her with every spare breath, and if that wasn’t love, she didn’t know what was.

“Anyway, it looks like she’s a fan of The Fray, Grey’s Anatomy, and Girl Scout Cookies.” Holly snorted. “Same, girl. But all her posts are pretty businesslike except for her livetweets. Her family is really proud of her, her brother’s military, too, and…” Her eyes widened. “No.”

“What?” Cisco asked, beginning to worry. “What’s wrong?”

“This is really, really bad,” Holly whispered.

“What?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“ _ What?” _

Holly held up the tablet towards him, bearing the image of a couple in battle gear, kissing passionately. “She ships Skyeward!” She cried.

Cisco didn’t know what to say. His pulse began to return to normal as he found himself laughing, and then Holly’s hearty laughter joined in. “You just scared the bejeezus out of me for a cringe ship.”

“Sorry. It’s just… I can’t resist my ship wars.”

The sun was setting outside, and somehow the light on Holly’s hair made it appear a little less stark, and the light shone off it instead of being extinguished. He could see faint scars on her forehead, remnants of the teen years, and one longer line just under her cheekbone. The light made her brown eyes less endless, more human. Her teeth had faint indentations, remnants of braces, and her ears bore closed-up cartilage piercings from a rebellious phase. For the first time, Holly was human. She breathed. She slept. She wasn’t some untouchable goddess. She was no Valkyrie. Holly was just a person.

“So,” she resumed, and Cisco woke from his reverie, hearing the slightly bossy edge to her voice. “Did I help any?”

“You did,” he supplied. “All I need now is the answer to a question.”

Holly rolled her eyes, leaning against the counter. “And the question is…?”

“How do we go about befriending a girl like her?”

She paused, taking the inquiry into consideration. Her eyes darted away; Cisco could practically see the gears in her head turning. “Make her feel understood,” Holly began. “No one else can do what she does. That’s cool, but it’s terrifying, too. She’s a lot more likely to come to you willingly if she believes you understand her better than she does.”

Cisco nodded thoughtfully before dismissing her with a soft, “Thanks.”

“Anytime, Cisco.” Holly set down the tablet and grabbed her gloves, turning to leave as she slipped the familiar leather over her hands.

“Holly,” Cisco called before she was too far gone, and she turned over her shoulder to meet his eyes. “I’m learning to understand.”

Holly thought back to her words a moment before, brain catching on her accidental self-portrait. She opened her mouth as if to protest, but thought better of it; instead, she began to smile softly, turning away before baring any teeth.

“Guys,” Caitlin called from the computer in the cortex. “I think we need backup.”

Holly turned, joining her friend at the monitor, where a live broadcast of footage from an address somewhere in Inglewood showed a flame-haired woman forcing her way into a darkened office building.

“That’s Bette?” Holly confirmed.

Cisco nodded, approaching from behind both of them. “That’s Bette.”

Holly reached into her back pocket and began to call Barry, then realized she had no way of contacting him. He was usually the one to scoop her up and run, but it seemed to be her turn. Realizing her dilemma, Cisco took up the helm. “I got you, girl.”

Caitlin spun in her chair to face Holly. “You’re not going out there.”

“Stop me,” Holly dared her, but something in her tone suggested that she wasn’t making a threat. She pulled off her jacket and started to lift her top over her head, unbothered by the fact that she was now half-nude before her new colleagues, and grabbed the Valkyrie top with one hand while tugging off her pants with the other. “I’m the best-- and the only-- shot we have at catching Bette before Eiling does. I may not be fast, but I’m a hell of a fighter. Metahuman or not.” She glanced back at Caitlin, waiting for a retort, but received none, so she continued donning her leggings.

As Cisco impatiently waited for Barry to pick up, he watched Holly’s struggle with her suit. Perhaps the original design needed some improvements, he thought as she nearly zipped her hair into her top. He could handle that.

“Got Barry yet, Cisco?” Holly asked, firmly tugging her gloves up her wrists. 

The call went to voicemail, and he looked up helplessly. “I’m trying, but no luck so far.”

Holly’s mind raced to find a new solution, turning over her shoulder to face the door into the cortex. She had the guts, but not the transportation. There was no faster way around Central City than being friends with Barry Allen, but he had a tendency for tardiness, and Holly predicted that she’d have more than one problem with that. She’d need a solution. A fast one.

Suddenly, Holly had a terrible idea, and she began to smile.

 

“Sergeant Sans Souci.”

Bette didn’t move a muscle, still as a waiting predator as she replied, “You remember me. Good.” Her tone hardened. “Because I remember you, doctor.”

Outside, squadrons of armed men awaited a command from their leader, silently hustling out of their vans like toys from a box, trios unfolding into dozens. They hadn’t yet considered the need for ammunition while still waiting outside their target, but perhaps they should have. 

The engine of a motorcycle roared to life not ten feet behind them, and Holly took more than a little pride in seeing a few of the dogs flinch like little girls at the sound. Before they could come back to their senses, she leapt off the bike, bolting towards the first at a dead sprint, her blood howling with the mission she’d laid out for herself.

She was going to fight who knows how many trained men, and she was going to win.

Holly didn’t have to think about hurting the innocent. Before her were men who had done it more times than she and intended to do it again, and she kept that thought in her mind as she hurled her weight against a burly-looking soldier and took him to the ground. She wrestled the gun from his hands, but, untrained, only used it to crack the shins of the two oncoming boys. 

Before any others could take their place, she moved like a shadow from her three downed victims and pulled her long, thin blade from its holster at her hip. The first soldier who dared to follow his friends received the blade’s agonizing kiss straight through his Achilles tendon, and as Holly only removed the dagger to bury it in the thigh of the next attacker, she found herself thinking, “This is incredibly unsanitary.”

That left four howling army men, one out cold, and too many more to count. It began to dawn on Holly that, perhaps, she’d bitten off more than she could chew. A flock of them drew their weapons, and Holly was willing to bet that they’d thought ahead enough to load them.

She didn’t have much a of a choice.

“Sorry,” she muttered to no one in particular, pulling the glove off her left hand, then placed it on a walkie-talkie that had fallen from the belt of one of the soldiers and focused all her energy on using that web of energy to her advantage.

Suddenly, the left hip of all the remaining soldiers lit up blue, and they all began to shake, cry out, fall to their knees. The drunken rush of life force, too ineffable for Holly to describe, shot up her fingers and into her chest, where it curled like religion. She didn’t stop, pouring her focus through her small connection, focusing on the heartbeats and the brainwaves of all… twenty-four soldiers surrounding her.

She didn’t want to stop.

Holding tight to the glowing energy inside her made her never want to stop. Her hands tingled, heart pounding so hard that she heard it resonating in her skull, and the more energy she sucked in, the more alive and powerful she felt.

The heaviest soldier fell, imposing figure crumpled on the grass, and Holly briefly remembered something her mother told her about everyone having a history, a family to go home to. He could be a father or a grandfather, and she could kill him and make a widow of his wife. She had seen enough of that for a lifetime.

Holly let go of the radio and the glow faded, although she still breathed luminescence. Her chest still glowed near where her heart was racing, though she could’ve excused it as the moonlight on her suit. She turned towards the building just in time to hear a man cry out for help, and she dashed towards the darkened place.

Bette heard the door open downstairs and the footsteps up the staircase, turning on her heel to the back door. The doctor was shouting for help like a lost child, and as the door opened, he hoped it would be his salvation.

Instead, Holly slipped inside just in time to see a flash of red hair out the exit door. She ignored the doctor’s cries and followed, right on her heels.

She burst inside the stairwell. “Bette, I don’t want to hurt you!” She shouted, but realized how unconvincing that sounded a moment later and rephrased. “I know you’ve got powers. I know they scare you. I get that.” Holly hadn’t heard the exit door open, so she knew Bette was waiting. Some part of her wanted answers, just like Holly did. Both of them were more powerful than they could understand, and they destroyed everything they touched. It got a little heavy after a while.

The silence lasted a moment longer before a formless voice replied, “Who are you?”

Holly swallowed hard, suddenly realizing that she’d forgotten to disguise her identity with the grease paint, but descended a few steps to see the shadows Bette had to be standing within. Something told her that seeing her unmasked would help. “It’s not safe enough here to tell you my name, but I’m a friend.” She held out her hand, still ungloved, and sparked up. “I’m like you.”

The light blooming off Holly’s palm didn’t quite illuminate the shadows where Bette stood. “What do you want?” Bette demanded, tone still defensive but less abrasive. 

Holly descended another few steps. “I want to help you. Really. Not like Eiling or that bullshit doctor up there.” She tilted her head, urging Bette to step out of the dark. The other woman still remained cloaked in shadow, but Holly felt her eyes scrutinizing her every move, watching for a sign of deception. “I have friends at STAR Labs. They’re the best shot you have at controlling this.”

Bette breathed. Holly felt her indecision as it morphed into conviction, and she got the sense she wasn’t merely empathizing. Maybe her abilities had a few unexpected advantages when she was charged up. However, she wasn’t quite able to tell what Bette was thinking, so as she reached a decision, Holly had to wait until she spoke. When Bette took a step forward into the shitty fluorescent lighting, Holly found herself beginning to smile as she asked, “How?”


	12. collision course

The roaring of the motorcycle engine echoed off the concrete walls in the STAR Labs garage, music to Holly’s ears. She nearly skidded as she stopped, but put a foot down before the bike turned any further. She pulled her helmet off and shook out her hair, turning back towards her passenger. “So,” she began, “you regretting this yet?”

Bette shrugged, mirroring Holly’s action. Her red hair tumbled out of the helmet with a grace Holly didn’t possess. “I’ve made worse decisions.”

Holly smirked. “Haven’t we both.” She glanced down at her gloveless hands, bare since she’d allowed Bette to borrow her leather gloves until she developed a better solution. Touching her would either kill them both or do nothing at all, and Holly was willing to risk it. She extended her hand, palm up, offering Bette her friendship and a smile. “My name’s Holly. Holly Stormcipher. I’m a doctor at Farraday most of the time. Other times, I glow.”

Bette cracked a smile and shook her hand. Nobody died. “Bette Sans Souci. I protected the country and now I blow things up.”

“Glowing and blowing,” Holly noted.

“Sounds like a really bad porn.”

They both snorted, and Holly found herself feeling strangely at home with her new friend. They shared uncommon common ground. “C’mon,” Holly gestured towards the stairs, cheeks flushing. She couldn’t stop smiling. “You’ve gotta meet the squints.”

The two of them turned away from the motorbike, still conversing as they made their way towards the cortex. Both were so fascinated by their new mirror image that they didn’t take notice of the small piece of metal embedded in the tire of the bike, a green light blinking rhythmically from within it.

Upstairs, Holly entered first, Bette flanking her to her right. “Guys,” Holly said, even though all attention was already on her, “Meet Sergeant Sans Souci.” She smiled proudly towards her friend. “She’s cool.”

Bette nearly smiled, too, but stopped herself; a trick all too familiar to Holly. “She said you could help me.”

Cisco was practically drooling. “Well, we sure hope so.”

In tandem, Bette and Holly both rolled their eyes.

“Welcome, Sergeant,” Wells greeted Bette, appearing from the hallway without a sound. Cisco thought he saw Holly jump. Wells’ icy eyes didn’t stray from Bette for a moment, though, as he crossed around the counter and approached her. Holly edged ever so slightly closer, as if she were about to shield Bette from him; Wells took it as a warning and slowed to a stop. “I heard you were searching for help.”

Bette glanced at Holly, who nodded discreetly, before replying. “I can’t control… whatever it is I can do now. I don’t know how to live like this.”

Wells put on that enigmatic smile of his and rotated towards a screen on the wall, clicking on an image of Bette’s readings from the first crime scene. “A little under a year ago, the particle accelerator I constructed went online for nearly an hour before experiencing a catastrophic difficulty. It exploded, scattering thousands of unknown elements across a wide radius encompassing all of Central City. A number of people were exposed to a wave of unquantifiable energy.” He looked back at Bette, smirking. “One of those people was you.”

A gust of wind alerted them to the presence of their disappearing Flash, who was completely unprepared to see his target standing beside his partner, who shot him an obligatory dirty look as he appeared with his signature tardiness. “Welcome to the party.”

“Uh,” he mumbled, feeling naked without the mask. Bette’s eyes scanned him, definitely memorizing his identity. It was too late to hide away now. “When were you guys planning to tell me we were bringing her in?”

“Whenever you decided to show up,” Holly deadpanned, but her voice didn’t hold any real vitriol. “You know, the world doesn’t revolve around you.”

So they were back to the banter. He settled into routine easily, countering with a simple, “Just catering to my admirers.”

Holly rolled her eyes good-naturedly and directed her attention back to Wells, crossing her arms and unintentionally mimicking Bette’s stance. “You were saying?”

Wells glanced between the pair of them, deducing that mild argument was their normal and all was right with the world, before continuing. “You were in Central City ten months ago.”

Bette nodded. “I had just returned from Afghanistan. I was there defusing roadside bombs and…”

Once again, she heard the deafening roar of an explosive. The ground shook. Her teeth hummed, her bones vibrated. All of it, loud and fast and unforgiving, just before the pain hit. Simultaneously, Bette and Holly flinched.

“Shrapnel ripped through me,” Bette continued, as Holly blinked out of whatever had just hit her. “I was flown back stateside. Spent months at the base recuperating and next thing I know,” she swallowed hard, “I became the thing that almost killed me.” She looked to Holly with a sense of inexplicable comradery before adding, “And Eiling’s favorite new lab rat.”

“The dark matter must have combined with the bomb particulate inside your body.” Caitlin murmured, mind racing to understand.

Bette looked up in surprise. “I thought Eiling did this to me.”

“Eiling is not smart enough to create someone like you,” Wells assured her, and Holly nudged her good-naturedly. “But clever enough to see your value.”

“Do you know of anyone else who was changed?” Bette asked.

“There’ve been a few,” Cisco replied, “but no one that looks like you.” 

Barry began to raise a hand to cover his face when he met eyes with Holly, and both began to crack with the slightest hint of a smile.

Realizing his slip of the tongue, Cisco rapidly backtracked. “I’m sorry, that was inappropriate.” He laughed nervously, “Please don’t leave.”

Still looking at each other, both superheroes heard Caitlin faintly whisper, “I know how to perform a lobotomy.”

Barry covered his mouth with one hand to conceal a grin, and even Holly cracked a smile, then nudged Bette’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s check you out.” She shot a playful glower back at Cisco. “ _ Medically. _ ”

Caitlin joined them as they headed to the medbay, white lab coat shining against Bette’s black leather jacket. Cisco and Barry gaped as the power trio walked away, shameless until Wells cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, please.”

Caitlin sat Bette down on the cot as Holly took a casual stance leaning against the outer wall, leaving the door open so she could hear action on both sides. Caitlin gently inserted an intravenous drip into Bette’s forearm, careful not to actually touch her, and checked her tablet for the readings from her blood. As they began to load, her eyes widened in awe. “Your cellular structure is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and your nitrogen levels are off the charts.” She tilted her tablet so that Bette could see her own anatomy. “Those are the readings of a bombshell of a woman.” Proud of her pun, she looked to see if Cisco had heard, but he was busy chattering with Wells, and she continued her analysis, a little disheartened.

“Oh, shoot,” Holly muttered to herself, hands exploring her suit for a pocket and realizing there was none. Her phone was still downstairs in the motorcycle’s console.

“What’s wrong?” Bette asked.

Holly stepped back awkwardly, trying to simultaneously progress towards her phone and answer Bette. “I was supposed to get Sophia from school this afternoon, and I didn’t--” she glanced outside at the night, heart dropping into her stomach. “I don’t know where she is.” She looked to Caitlin desperately. “I’m sorry--”

“Go,” Caitlin ordered, and Holly obeyed without any further urging. She darted out into the hallway and out to the garage stairs, her shadow disappearing after her.

“Do you think we can help her?” Barry asked, watching Caitlin handle Bette in the medbay. Since Holly had dashed out so suddenly, Bette had gone quiet, and it began to dawn on Barry that the two women made each other feel a little less alien. Separately, they were both variables. Together, each of them quantified the other.

Wells sighed, disappointed that he didn’t truly know the solution. “To answer that question, we have to understand how she works,” he began, then hesitated before continuing, “and to understand that, first we have to study her in action.”

“You want her to blow stuff up,” Cisco enthusiastically concluded, allowing himself an obligatory air punch. “Yes, now we’re talking.”

Barry suddenly understood why Wells had been hesitant to bait him.

“Not in here, she’s too unstable,” Wells reminded him like a parent discouraging a sugar-high child.

Cisco shook his head, mildly offended. “I know.”

“I know you know.”

Inside the medbay, Bette watched Caitlin tap on her trusty tablet for a few moments. “So this is your life now, huh?” She asked humorlessly. “Testing people like me?”

“Stopping people like you,” Caitlin corrected her. Realizing her sharp tone, she continued a little gentler, “It’s not what I thought I’d be doing.”

When Bette still held onto her silence, Caitlin tried another tactic. “Actually, aside from lightning boy and glowstick girl, you’re the first metahuman we’ve tested.”

Bette frowned. “Meta… human?”

Caitlin shook her head, as if to clear the moniker from the conversation. “It’s just a term.”

The sound of combat boots smacking the concrete floor echoed from the hallway, and in came Holly again, somehow even more in distress than before. Instead of leaving via the elevator, she stopped in the medbay, depositing a blinking green object on Caitlin’s dissecting tray. “Tracker,” she announced, slightly breathless. “Must’ve shot it onto my bike when we were getting away.” She looked towards Barry, in the window outside the room. “They’re coming.”

Without having to communicate anything else, Barry disappeared in a burst of electricity, taking Bette with him. Caitlin began to hurriedly clean up the medbay, concealing any sign of Bette’s presence, and Holly started out into the hallway.

Cisco called after her, well aware that Eiling was on his way up the elevator. “Yo, Blue,” he beckoned, surprised to see her respond to the spontaneous nickname. “Where are you headed? Eiling’s coming up that way.”

Holly shrugged as if a mass of armed guards weren’t ready to murder her. “I gotta find Sophia. Let ‘em try to stop me.”

Cisco had a feeling that guns wouldn’t do anything to keep Holly from getting to Sophia, but he wasn’t entirely sure who Sophia was in the first place. As she turned on her heel, spinning her keys on her finger, he wondered if there would ever be a right time to ask.

She descended into the garage again, pulling her helmet over her black ponytail and swinging one leg over her new ride. She wondered if STAR Labs was really that attached to the motorbike, and if they’d try to stop her from adopting it. As she slipped the keys into the ignition, she hesitated, wondering if perhaps the others needed her here more than Sophia did, but the thought lingered only for a moment before she was once again assured of her choice.

Family won this round.

Holly started the engine and sped off into the night. It was only a ten-minute drive back to her place, a decent apartment on Madison and Seventh, and on her way into the garage she could see that her light was on. Either someone had broken in or Sophia was fine, and both options let her feel perfectly safe as she ascended the stairs and opened the door without knocking.

Her living room had been fully converted into a pillow fort, and the only signs of life she could spot were her best friend’s long legs sticking out the back of his homemade heaven. Although building a fort out of her best sheets wasn’t entirely out of Ashton’s character, she doubted he’d choose to watch Fairly OddParents over Grey’s Anatomy, and her assumption was proved correct when a head of black hair peeped out of the side of the fort and a little voice squealed, “Holly!”

Finally at ease about her mistake, Holly smiled too as Sophia dashed towards her and took a running leap into her arms. The six-year-old slammed into her with all the force of an NFL quarterback, and Holly had to wonder if her strength was hereditary. “You’re getting too big for that, Bruiser,” she laughed, settling the kid on her hip regardless of her size. Ashton wiggled out of the fort across the room, raising an eyebrow at Holly, who nodded in silent understanding. She turned to Sophia. “Hey, isn’t it past your bedtime?”

Sophia’s brown eyes widened, cheeks beginning to redden with the lie she was preparing to tell. “No…?”

“Mhmm,” Holly nodded, setting off towards Sophia’s bedroom. “Thought so. You hoped Ashton was going to let you break all the rules, huh?”

“No.” Sophia denied too quickly.

Holly nudged open the door with her hip, depositing the little girl on the bed so she bounced, just like she liked to. She was already in her pajamas-- Holly would thank Ashton later for saving her from the wrestling match-- but her bright eyes alerted Holly to her stubborn reluctance not to sleep anytime soon. As Sophia scrambled under her blankets, Holly settled at the end of her twin bed. “What do I need to do to get you to go to sleep?”

Sophia shot her a shit-eating grin-- the exact same one Holly used sometimes-- and singsonged, “I dunno.”

Holly rolled her eyes. “Well, I was kind of thinking about a certain song--”

“Yes!” Sophia shrieked  “Yes, yes, yes, do the song!”

The elder girl sighed deeply and obliged.

A few minutes later, Holly reappeared in the living room, only to see Ashton happily munching on the remnants of his shared popcorn. “So,” he began, tossing a piece in his mouth, “How was saving the world this fine day?”

Holly let out a deep breath. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Ashton waved her off sarcastically. “Not like I had to defuse a screaming Eve and make up some bullshit lie about you sharting your scrubs.”

Holly’s jaw dropped, but Ashton continued before she could protest.

“Took me a hot minute to convince her you actually did shit yourself, but I found an old blackmail picture from last year that I sent her and she believed me.”

Holly gasped, eyes flashing blue for a moment as she stepped forward. “You promised you’d never tell anyone about that.”

Ashton shot her a dirty look. “Hey, I did  _ not _ give her actual context. I’m your best friend, and you get a grace period for firsts. She still doesn’t know what really happened. Anyway, it’s all good. She wants you to call her.”

Holly slowly recovered from the shock of her best friend’s cover story and scoffed. “Yeah, and I’d like my sex life to stay between  _ us, _ ” she hissed, elbowing Ashton in the side. Hard.

“Ow.”

“Yeah. Learn from your mistakes.”

Ashton rubbed his side regretfully. “Yeah, I’m learning.” He looked up at the clock and back to Holly, who hadn’t bothered to change entirely out of her suit. The reflective silver ‘V’ on her back was concealed by a black STAR Labs sweatshirt, which brought a frown to Ashton’s ridiculously attractive face. “I didn’t know they made those in black.”

“I inspired them,” Holly deadpanned.

Ashton couldn’t help but laugh. He shot her a moment of his smile, and it illuminated hers too. “You should hit the sack, blackbird. You’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

Holly nodded, feeling the weight of the day settling onto her shoulders as her functioning speed slowed a little. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Ashton reached towards her. Holly, exhausted, fell into his open arms with a weak sigh. Her head felt filled with iron, her limbs leaden. Ashton’s hand came up to smooth down her hair, and Holly closed her eyes gladly. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, inhaling the smell of her hair; red apple, cinnamon, something that reminded him of Christmas. She’d kill him if he said as much-- in her opinion, apple was probably weak, and cinnamon was overrated, and he knew better than to talk Christmas in front of the raven-haired calamity jane.

“Get some sleep,” he advised her.

“Okay,” she murmured, sounding more childlike than he’d ever heard her. Maybe the whole superhero thing was toning down her destructive fire. Or maybe…

“Hey, H,” he called, and she stopped walking, but didn’t turn. He spoke anyway. “How’re you getting on with the Flash?”

He thought he heard a smile in her voice when she said, “I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

 

“Hello, Gabriel,” Holly greeted the patient in the robin-egg blue room. “I’m Dr. Stormcipher, but you can call me Holly. Since Dr. Nestor was reassigned to Davidson, I’ll be your new…” she hesitated, attempting to come up with a better title than the correct medical jargon, “captain.” She looked up from the wheelchair she was pushing, smiling kindly. 

The child in the bed before her seemed almost ridiculously small in his large cot, but his grin overcame his sickness. “Okay, captain.”

Typically, the cancer kids were a downer. Whenever Holly got one, she always put on her best armor and a fake smile and pretended it didn’t bother her to see the parents sobbing in the hallway whenever the inevitable end arrived. Doing what she did, becoming desensitized was in the job description. She hated being in rotation; when she finally became a resident, she had promised herself that she’d only deal with cancer kids if they were going under the knife and she would be their guide into sleep.

Gabriel already seemed different. He had a bright smile and pretty eyes, and the disease in his body hadn’t at all dampened his spirit. She had a feeling that little Gabriel had it in him to fight off the curse he’d fallen victim to. Holly met his smile with one of her own. However rare it was, when she did smile, it was real, and beautiful. “You ready to go down to blood testing?” She asked, and Gabriel’s smile faltered ever-so-slightly. “It’s okay,” she assured him, “I hate getting my blood drawn, too. But we have this new numbing spray that just came in and I promise you won’t feel a thing.”

Gabriel made a face. “Nothing at all?”

Holly backtracked, trying to gain Gabriel’s trust. “Well, not much. It definitely won’t hurt as badly as it used to.”

He nodded tentatively, and Holly moved forward with the wheelchair before her. “Need help getting out of bed?” She asked.

“I can do it,” Gabriel assured her, meeting her eyes with an unsure nod, pushing the blanket off his weakened legs and wobbling into the wheelchair. It took too much effort, and Holly’s heart ached. But just as she was about to sink into pity, Gabriel looked up at her and grinned ear to ear. “C’mon, let’s go!”

Holly laughed, turning the chair around and heading down towards the blood collection station. Gabriel moved his arm in a wave, as if he were speeding down the highway in a fast car rather than rolling in a squeaky wheelchair. He seemed familiar to her, but not immediately, and instead her mind leapt to Sophia. His file had said he was eight, only a year her senior, and already so brave. Holly couldn’t imagine what she’d do if Sophia ever got sick like he was.

“Hey, glowstick girl.”

Holly jumped, startled from her reverie at the greeting, and turned to see Ashton effortlessly keeping pace with her. He, too, bore a wide smile, but he wasn’t who Gabriel reminded her of. She let out a breath, readjusting to conversation. “Hey.”

“How’s it going?” Ashton asked Gabriel, who nodded cheerfully.

“It’s going great!” He chirped, and Holly found her heart swelling again.

Ashton looked back to his companion. “And you?”

Holly shrugged. “Bette’s working out with Cisco and--” she hesitated, catching herself before revealing Barry’s identity-- “Usain Bolt, so they don’t really need me at the moment. I told Cisco I’d be ready if they did.”

Ashton sighed, disappointed that he still hadn’t garnered the speedster’s identity out of Holly. “Well, is that all I get?”

“Yep.”

“Ugh,” Ashton muttered, then nudged her. “Your phone’s lighting up.”

Holly reached into her pocket with one hand, slowing down as she read Caitlin’s name on the caller ID. Of course, she’d managed to jinx her luck. She looked to her best friend desperately. “Ashton, can you--”

“Sure,” he agreed, then darted his gaze to Gabriel, who had turned to watch her.

Holly met his eyes and explained, “I’m helping out at a research facility right now, and it looks like they need me.”

Gabriel’s eyes widened. “Wow, you’re really smart, aren’t you?”

Ashton laughed. “On occasion.”

Holly glared at him, then smiled apologetically at Gabriel. “Do you mind if I dash out for a while?”

“Nope,” Gabriel shrugged. “I’ll be waiting.”

“Thanks, Superman,” Holly said, nodding appreciatively at Ashton before answering her phone. “What’s up?”

Cait’s voice was somewhat distorted by wind as she explained the situation. “Iris signed her name to her blog about the Flash, so Barry wants to go… fix that.”

“How?” Holly asked, perplexed. The sound of the wheelchair faded as Ashton and Gabriel proceeded without her.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Caitlin admitted. “But I don’t want to leave Bette here without another metahuman. I think it helps her feel a little better.”

Holly nodded, then remembered Caitlin couldn’t hear that. “Yeah, it does. Take it from me.”

“Wells thinks you’re alike in more ways than that,” Caitlin said.

Holly turned around, walking down the periwinkle hallways towards the parking lot. “What does that mean?”

Caitlin paused, and Holly heard the faint sound of an explosion, but judging by the absence of screams, the blast was controlled. “I’ll explain more when you get here. Barry’s on his way to get you now.”

Holly stopped walking, already nearing the main entrance, and groaned. “Oh, god, tell me he won’t--”

Electricity ripped through the air and Holly felt arms pull her legs out from under her, and although she was becoming accustomed to the whole superspeed thing, it still wasn’t pleasant to see the world rushing past in a blur of color and light. The air was cold as it blustered past her, and the next thing she knew, Holly was standing in the middle of an empty lot, still holding her phone to her ear. 

“--run me there,” Holly finished reluctantly, letting her arm drop to her side and hanging up the phone as Caitlin spotted her ten feet away. Bette had turned, probably when Barry left, and now saw her friend standing in the lot in his place. She began to jog back towards her, and Holly wondered if she’d get paid for the hours she spent here, since she hadn’t clocked out at Farraday.

“I told him you weren’t a fan, but you know how he is,” Caitlin sympathized. She gestured towards Bette. “She’s been showing us how it’s done all day, and that reminded me that we never actually tested you. I’m sorry.”

Holly smirked. “Don’t be. I hate being poked and prodded.”

“Says the nurse,” Bette chimed in, arriving beside her.

“Doctor, actually,” Holly quipped playfully. “I didn’t suffer through medical school to get shortchanged.”

“Cheers to that,” Caitlin agreed.

Bette looked Holly up and down. “How in the hell do you cope with two lives? And not just any two lives, doctor and superhero.” She seemed genuinely impressed, and Holly felt a little exposed in front of someone who could actually understand her efforts. While Ashton tried, he could only see her as Doc Storm, and the team only saw her as Valkyrie. Bette seemed to see the full spectrum.

Holly shook her head. “With great difficulty.”

Caitlin’s tablet pinged, and as she read the results, she turned away like she had something to hide. Bette and Holly’s eyes followed her, but neither moved. If Caitlin wanted something hidden, it should probably stay that way.

“That didn’t look good,” Bette muttered.

“Nope,” Holly agreed. She looked to her friend and made a face. “Did you spend the night here?”

“Unfortunately,” Bette admitted, smoothing her wrinkled clothes. “Does it show? I tried to fix the mess before we left this morning, but there’s not a lot a girl can do when she’s locked away from the world in a medbay.”

Holly let loose a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “I know! They did the same thing to me when they found me. Made me camp out in that stupid medbay for a week. It was awful, but I guilted Caitlin into bringing me a change of clothes after day three.”

“How did they find you?” Bette asked curiously, and Holly thought back to the day that felt so long ago. “What were you doing before you became… this?”

Holly tried to find the right words. “Um… I was beating people up?” The words spilled out like a question. “Bad people, though. Criminals and stuff. I’d tap into the police scanner and show up to kick their asses when no one else could.”

“You used your powers to become a vigilante,” Bette marveled.

Holly stumbled. “No, actually. I never used my powers at all until they found me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I hate them.”

Both women recoiled slightly at the words. Holly hadn’t expected them. She hadn’t ever truly thought about it before, but now that the confession had been spoken, she realized its truth. She didn’t want to own this violet curse. She didn’t really want to be a superhero. All she wanted was to help people, but she had never dreamed to do so with the help of any superhuman abilities.

“Then why become a vigilante?” Bette asked tentatively. “Or a superhero, for that matter? Couldn’t you just say no to it all and go home and be a doctor?”

Holly paused, looking over her shoulder. No one was in earshot except Bette. When she met eyes with her again, she had a sure answer. “Because that erases me.” Her heart began to race at the idea of confession, speaking secrets aloud. She swallowed hard, preparing herself to speak truth. “If I hid from my strength, I wouldn’t be who I am today, and I’m not talking about my powers. Those are extra. But when I’m here, that’s all I am. I’m a question to be answered, a gold mine of mysteries. But I can kill people with one touch.”

She paused, and Bette seemed to be drawn in even further. Holly wondered if it was because every word she’d said so far applied to the pair of them. 

“I learned to fight not because I wanted to save my world,” Holly took a shaky breath, feeling strangely vulnerable, “but because I wanted to save my  _ life _ .” At Bette’s narrowed eyes, Holly explained, “Bad things have happened to me since way before the particle accelerator went boom. I have other battles to fight than with… metahumans.”

“You didn’t start fighting to use your powers,” Bette deduced.

Holly completed the statement. “I started fighting to prove I had power without them.” She raised her head, leveling gazes with Bette. “We’re not our abilities. We may not like it, but we own them. They don’t own us.”

Bette smiled softly, uncrossing her arms, and Holly recognized the motion and what it meant to the both of them. When she moved half a step towards Holly, Bette found herself being enveloped in the first hug she’d experienced in over a year. Holly’s hair blew in Bette’s face, but she didn’t mind; it smelled like cinnamon and spice, like a holiday. Both were careful not to touch the other’s bare skin, but the caution didn’t weaken the embrace in the slightest. Standing in the center of the empty lot, both women felt their armor break down a little without becoming weak. Somehow, the truth of one had relieved the other of a part of her burden.

“I think they’re getting along pretty well,” Cisco observed with a growing smile, across the lot from the pair.

Caitlin nodded weakly, glancing down at the information on her tablet that would soon replace the freedom Bette had gained. She hated that she’d have to tell the truth sooner or later.

 

Hours passed, and Holly took the liberty of taking Bette back to her apartment until STAR Labs summoned them home. Caitlin debated with Cisco over how to break the news, but across town, the two women were binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy and complaining about anything but their powers. It felt sane. It felt like a year ago, before either of them had been cursed.

Of course, eventually the call came that beckoned them back to STAR Labs, and the mood darkened a bit. Bette knew that she was about to receive a verdict, and Holly knew by the sound of Caitlin’s voice that it probably wouldn’t be a good one.

When the two of them entered the lab, Caitlin and Cisco turned to face them with double false smiles. Holly braced for the worst. 

That’s precisely what she received, when Bette heard the news that she couldn’t be cured; at the same time, it began to dawn on Holly that perhaps she, too, could ask to be relieved of her duties; but as far as she knew, Barry never had. She tucked this corner of a request in the back of her mind in case STAR Labs ever came to owe her a favor.

Bette stormed away, a tempest of red hair and power, excusing herself bitterly to go cry and leaving Holly with her small army. Caitlin, Barry, and Cisco collectively glanced her way, waiting for a smart-mouthed comment about how they’d handled the situation, but received none.

“Well, that went well,” Cisco muttered to himself, removing Bette’s vital scans from the screen before them. 

Caitlin glanced at Barry, tilting her head toward Holly as Wells silently traversed away. “I think a certain partner in crime of yours could be of some assistance right about now.”

Turning towards Holly, Barry expected her to be at least somewhat invested in the conversation, but she was absently staring towards the room where she’d slept upon first arriving at STAR Labs. Her mind was clearly worlds away from the cortex where she stood. It was one of the few times they’d ever seen her in plainclothes, rather than either her Valkyrie suit or scrubs. Now, she was clad in skinny jeans, a blue T-shirt, and a multicolored flannel that looked like it belonged to someone else. The softness of her lips as she remained unfocused was oddly endearing; for once, the all-powerful Valkyrie was vulnerable. 

But she felt the eyes of the room on her, sensing a beckoning in the silence. She glanced up, dark eyes fixing upon Barry. “Hm?”

For a moment, he, too, forgot why he’d needed her. Getting caught in her gaze could do that to a person. Soon enough, his mind caught back onto its last thought and he spoke. “Maybe you should go talk to Bette. You guys seem to… get each other.”

“Why, ‘cause we’re both tall and angry and intimidating?” Holly asked sarcastically. Her eyes sparked like cigarettes, and Barry feared he’d irritated her. Again. He wasn’t sure how much more punching he could take from a girl with supercharged fists. But despite her apparent reluctance, she found herself moving towards the door. “Never could’ve called it.”

“Thank you,” Barry yelled after her, hoping their truce still stood.

From the hallway, she replied, “You owe me a caramel iced coffee tomorrow.”

She seemed too far away for him to shout back. He smiled to himself, turning back towards the others. Cisco had raised one eyebrow, shooting his gaze sideways at Caitlin, who seemed unimpressed. Something had clearly just happened that Barry had missed.

He made a face. “What?”

“Nothing,” Cisco hummed, but he might as well have held up a huge poster that said, “You and Holly should get together and make some leather-clad babies.”

Barry shook off that thought and continued. “So now we’re running damage control on Sergeant Sans Souci--”

“Plastique,” Cisco corrected him.

“Whatever,” Barry went on. “What do we do now, if we can’t help her?”

Caitlin and Cisco exchanged a clueless shrug.

“She can become part of Team Flash--”

“No,” Caitlin cut him off.

“Well, we can’t just lock her up with the other evil metahumans,” Barry explained, frustrated. 

“She can’t go back into the world like this, either.” Caitlin pointed out.

Silence settled upon them, all three trying and failing to find the perfect answer. Cisco didn’t say so, but he wouldn’t object to making the Flashyrie twosome a trio. After all, Bette’s presence added ammunition to STAR Labs’ growing female arsenal, and Cisco would never have a problem with that.

“We can keep her here overnight,” Caitlin proposed. “Until we think of a better solution. Then, we decide what to do from there.”

Barry tilted his head, considering the options before him. Bette didn’t deserve to be kept here like a wild animal. “Holly said the bed over there’s the most uncomfortable place she’s ever slept and she spent the night on her front porch once.”

Cisco chuckled, but silenced himself at a glare from Caitlin. 

“Where do you say we let her stay, then?” Caitlin asked.

“With me,” Holly decided, reentering a few feet ahead of a slightly red-faced Bette. The two of them made an imposing pair. “I’ve got a spare couch for Ashton. She can take my bed.” Holly smirked at her friend, nudging her shoulder. “You can get to know Sophia.”

Bette seemed as if she were about to smile when Dr. Wells appeared behind her, shaking his head. “No.”

Holly tensed. She hated that he managed to creep up on her like this, and she further hated that he’d contradicted her. She slowly turned on her heel, struggling to hold onto the vision of the respected scientist in the wheelchair before her. Just barely holding her tongue, Holly took a deep breath. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

Dr. Wells lifted his chin, softening his expression. Holly eased in the slightest, and he dared speak when she followed suit. “I think it would be wisest to keep Bette contained until we find a better way for her to live.”

“She can live with  _ me-- _ ” Holly protested, but Wells cut her off.

“And if she finds herself accidentally holding hands with your dear Sophia?” He challenged her. “Shaking hands with Ashton? Dr. Stormcipher, there are some things even you are not powerful enough to defend against. One of them is Sergeant Sans Souci.” 

Holly’s body tensed, her hands curling into fists at her sides. Bette knew he was right, and she knew she was a danger, but it still hurt to feel Holly recede an inch or so away from her. She looked to her ally, and Holly’s eyes were full of some unnamed emotion-- remorse, perhaps-- but she didn’t step closer. Bette understood, though, however much she wished it could be otherwise. She nodded at Holly, hardly noticeable, but a relenting, a release. Holly didn’t need to protect her.

Bette turned towards Dr. Wells. “I’ll stay here.”

“Good choice,” he nodded. “I’d appreciate it if you came with me for a moment. Oh, and team-- see that the mattress on the cot gets replaced.”

At the skeptical looks he received from his colleagues, he added an obligatory, “Please.”

Bette and Dr. Wells exited in silence, but Holly didn’t relax. Her hands still remained in fists behind her back, her head bowed ever so slightly. He’d struck a chord, mentioning Sophia.

“Hey, Holly,” Barry said carefully, and his only reply was a slight turn of her head to recognize that he was speaking. He stood up, walking down the ramp past her towards the hallway. “I need your help out here for a minute.”

She followed, grateful for the excuse to leave. Once out of earshot of everyone else, she seemed to decompress a little. Barry slowed, allowing her to keep pace with him. It wasn’t a struggle for her; she was a mere two inches shorter than he was. “Do you want to talk about that?” He asked hesitantly, slowing his walk.

She followed his lead. “Nope.”

A moment passed, and she still remained silent. The two of them walked further into the innards of STAR Labs, so far that it was impossible to tell who was leading whom. The only sound became the gentle tap of their foosteps on the linoleum, the sound of Holly gradually slowing her breathing. Her ponytail swung back and forth rhythmically as she walked onwards, and before either knew where they were headed, the hall opened up into a catwalk above some massive structure below.

Barry recognized it immediately, but from Holly’s sudden stop, she hadn’t been treated to the STAR Labs tour like he had. 

“Whoa,” Holly whispered, rage forgotten in favor of awe. Below her lay the remnants of the particle accelerator, the very machine that had begun her journey into heroism. She leaned over the railing fearlessly, gazing down at the expanse of ruin. “This is where we got started, huh?” Her ponytail fell forward over her shoulder as she inspected the destruction, crossing her arms on the metal railing. 

Barry watched her, barely remembering to answer. “Yeah, I guess it is. Funny how that happens.”

“How… what happens?” Holly asked, resting her chin on her arms. When she looked back at him over her shoulder, it dawned on him that she hadn’t made a single mean comment to him in recent memory. Maybe the basis of their partnership was changing.

“You know. How bad things turn back into good things,” he shrugged, smiling at his realization. Holly turned back toward “How an explosion made us--”

At the same time Barry said, “Heroes,” Holly said, “Friends.”

They looked at each other in silence, but neither spoke again on the subject. Instead, Holly sighed, leaning her head on her arms again, studying him. “Do you think we’ll do this forever?”

Barry paused, thinking. “I want to. This is... everything to me. I love it, and I don’t know if I could ever stop, but I really don’t know.” The thought of stopping his heroism is foreign and unwanted, but he wonders if Holly feels the same way. Judging by the absence of her accelerator-given glow, she’s not quite as attached.

He pondered his next question before daring to ask. “Holly, are you… afraid of your powers?”

A painful laugh escaped from Holly before she could stop it. “Why, because me and Bette are the same person and she’s scared?”

“No, it just… made me wonder.”

She let out a puff of air before replying. “It’s kind of a long story, but the short version is yes. I’m afraid of them. And I hate them.” Her final words were tinged with a deep loathing, a kind that Barry hadn’t heard before. Sure, she’d been mean, but not hateful.

He summons his courage. “What happened?”

Holly’s shoulders tightened, and Barry didn’t need to see her face to know that he’d struck a nerve. For a few moments, she was silent, and he didn’t think she’d say a word. And then she moved, turning around with the pale moonlight glinting off her shiny ponytail and brightening her features. “I’ve done some bad things, Barry,” she admitted, and he almost detects vulnerability in her voice for once.

“Of course, we’ve all made mistakes--”

“No, not like me, not like this one,” she interrupted, and now he was sure that he heard it. Pain. Worse, guilt. 

Barry braced for the worst. “Holly, what are you talking about?”

She swallowed hard and continued laboriously, seemingly hurting with every word. “When I first got my powers, I couldn’t control them. You don’t need to agree with me. I already know that you couldn’t either. But we-- Barry, we’re  _ different _ .”

“I know, H, but--”

“Shut up,” she interrupted, but not cruelly. Fearfully would be a more accurate description, or perhaps anxiously. “When your powers go wrong, you run into something too hard. When mine go wrong…” Holly paused, and then the next words poured out one after another like they’d stop if she breathed. “I kill thirteen people.”

Barry recoiled.  _ How could she have-- What did she--  _ “What?” He demanded, a little too sharply, but Holly was used to roughness. She didn’t hesitate.

“I passed out during the lightning storm and four of my coworkers tried to help me. They all mysteriously died. Instantaneous brain death.” She winced as she whispered, “Katya Gold. Lucas Forsythe. Hannah Dreyfuss. Timothy Kingsbury. Interns. Younger than me.”

Barry shook his head and opened his mouth, but she held up a finger.

“I didn’t know what was going on. When I woke up, I ripped the IV cords out of my body and I ran. I hit the stairwell and I touched the banister and every--” her voice suddenly broke, and she darted her gaze away. “Every single other person touching it died too. Seven people. And then two patients when I was running away. One of them was sixteen. His name was Connor.”

She pulled off her gloves and crammed them in her jacket pocket, shoving her hands towards Barry. “Look at me. Actually look at me, my hands.”

Barry did. Her fingers are long and delicate, which presents a mixed effect coupled with her bruised knuckles. 

“These kill people with a touch,” she explained softly, achingly. “I can’t touch anyone without being afraid that they’ll drop dead.”

Barry remembered Holly mentioning a child named Sophia and a mysteriously familiar best friend-- Dr. Cross. She had to have touched them. He remembers, with a start, that she’s touched him too. When he was choking to death, one of the last things he felt was a surge of warmth and the color blue, and a memory that definitely wasn’t his.

And with that thought in mind, he reached for her hands.

She jerked away. “What the hell are you doing?” Holly demanded, eyes wide with fear.

“Touch me, H. And please don’t get scared,” he warned her with a half-smile. Now it was his turn to be reaching for her.

He had no idea how the fire begged at her edges, hungry as always. Taking life. Needing more. He had no idea.

Holly turned away, pacing a few yards down from him. “You have no idea, Barry. You’re a hero, and I kill people.” She reached for a segment of railing as she muttered, “You should lock me up with the rest of the bad guys.”

She didn’t see the weakened railing. She had no idea what was coming until the weakened glass cracked under her and the space where she’d leaned her knee on the barrier collapsed. She began to fall.

Holly pinwheeled her arms and yelped, but someone seized her and pulled her back into balance. Barry had to have used his speed to get to her in time, and he looked as terrified as she was. 

“Holy shit,” Holly whispered, her heart beating out of her chest, unable to move her eyes from Barry’s. She refused to look at the fall she’d just faced.

Barry ignored her. “You’re right about one thing, Holly. I am a hero.” He offered her a smile, despite the fact that he was scared out of his mind a few moments before. “And heroes save people.”

She narrowed her dark eyes, a smile tickling her lips. “That is  _ so  _ cheesy.”

When he laughed, he looked down.

When he looked down, he saw her hand gripping his. If he tried, he could feel her pulse. It was pounding almost as fast as his. She glanced down, and he had no idea just how acutely she could feel his heart beating too.

“See, H?” He asked softly, beginning to smile. “You’re not so untouchable after all.”

For the first time in her life, she didn’t have a smartass reply. Maybe the only person more surprised than her was Barry, because he even allowed himself to break into a smile as she looked up at him. Somehow, time stretched into ages, just the two of them in the middle of the night, and they didn’t need to be superheroes for a minute. They were just two people, finally sharing something they could hold onto.

Holly pulled her hand free, but only for a moment. She dove forward and hugged him, and Barry’s hands lingered in the air where she had been moments before as his mind tried to catch up to time. Slowly, hesitantly, he pulled them back in, holding her, and she didn’t let go. Barry breathed in, noticing that she smelled like Christmas, like her namesake. Her face was buried in his shoulder like she wasn’t ever letting go of him. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to.

“Sorry for punching you in the face,” she whispered, and he couldn’t remember her ever apologizing before.

“It’s okay,” he replied gently, and when she released him, he wished she hadn’t. “Are you going home?”

She shrugged. “I have to. Sophia has gymnastics tomorrow morning.”

Barry nodded, somewhat let down that she had to go. “Okay. See you later, then.”

Holly stepped back, walking away without turning. “You almost sound disappointed, speedster,” she quipped lightly, allowing herself a rare smile.

He didn’t have an answer, even as she waited, and then she turned and was gone.

By morning, the glow of the previous night hadn’t faded, and Barry found himself looking forward to seeing Holly again. Maybe, now that they weren’t clashing so aggressively, things could change. He hoped they would.

But the lab was too quiet when he came in, and it didn’t take him long to realize why.

“Where’s Bette?” He asked, almost afraid of the answer.

Cisco, dejected, muttered, “She left.”

Barry made a face, heart beginning to race. “What did you mean? Where did she go?” He demanded, looking to Caitlin when all he received from Cisco was a halfhearted shrug.

“We don’t know,” she replied in the absence of Cisco’s answer.

Bette was gone, Holly wasn’t at the lab, and no one was offering any useful information to him at all. “Well, where the hell could she be?” He asked desperately, hating that they were letting her go. Would they let Holly go, if she disappeared overnight?

No one was offering him the right answers, and it didn’t seem apparent that they cared. Not even Cisco. He didn’t have another option. 

He called Holly.

“What’s wrong?” She answered automatically, the squeals of children faint on her end of the line.

“It’s Bette,” he said shortly. “She’s gone.”

There was a brief pause, and then his phone buzzed in his ear. “I sent you my location,” Holly said, her voice taking on the Valkyrie’s edge. “Run.”

And he did. He ran straight to where Holly told him to, and the moment he was gone, it seemed Cisco began to realize the reality of Bette’s situation. “She’s at the waterfront. Eiling’s going to beat you there. Hurry.” Holly was already changed into her suit underneath her jacket, which Barry found a bit amusing, but he didn’t have time to smile.

“All I’ve ever wanted was to make the world a safer place,” Bette was calling, turning away from the water. The two metahumans came to a skidding stop behind one of the military Jeeps just as she said. “And it will be… when you’re not in it!”

Bette flung two handfuls of marbles, glowing violet with explosive power, towards the soldiers, who dove for cover as each and every one combusted and threw them back. Holly bolted straight into the firefight as Barry materialized at Bette’s side.

She flinches at his sudden appearance. “What are you doing?” She demanded roughly, sounding too much like Holly.

He shook his head. “Being a soldier doesn’t mean you’re a murderer.”

Holly ruthlessly kicked a soldier in the head as he reached for his gun, and as she whirled back to face her friends, she wished she were faster. Eiling raised his weapon towards Bette, and Holly wasn’t quick enough to reach him before he pulled the trigger.

Bette fell in half a moment. Holly’s warning turned to a war cry in her throat as she dove towards Eiling. She wasn’t thinking as she ripped off a leather glove, her hand eagerly glowing as it buried itself in the general’s hair and immediately siphoned the electricity from his mind.

God, it was relieving. Feeding the power that had taken up residence inside her felt like removing shoes a size too small, being let out of handcuffs, chopping off a full ponytail of heavy hair. She didn’t want to stop.

She wouldn’t have, unless Barry desperately called, “Holly, help!”

The reaction to rip her hand away was instinctive. Somehow, easier. She scrambled off of Eiling in a heartbeat and dashed towards Bette, inspecting the wound. “You’re going to be fine,” she whispered without thinking about it.

“Don’t lie to me,” Bette murmured weakly.

Holly swallowed hard, unable to meet her eyes. This wasn’t her patient, this was her friend. “Fine. You’re dying.”

Bette cringed, and Holly immediately regretted being frank. “Honesty is a good color on you, Holly,” she whispered. “Thank you for that.”

She had nothing to lose anymore. Holly looked up at Barry, shaky, and he nodded in silent agreement. So she took a deep breath, let her hands begin to blaze, and pressed her hands to Bette’s wound.

Bette’s eyes snapped back open, revitalized. Holly almost laughed with the relief, the pressure in her body releasing, for once creating instead of destroying. Hope took root in her chest when Bette began to regain color in her face, eyes sharpening. Holly felt herself smiling absently, seeing within Bette a chance to be something better than murderous.“Barry-- Dr. Wells,” Bette struggled to say, still injured. She took a shaky, but substantial, breath. “He--”

Holly remembered Wells refusing to let Bette spend the night with her. She felt that rage awaken anew, that if he had just let her go, they wouldn’t be here, with Bette bleeding on her hands--

_ Snap. _ The glow went out with a spark of heat in Holly’s palms, a shock she hadn’t felt since the day of the explosion. Bette went suddenly silent, eyes going unfocused in Barry’s direction. Gone. For good. She’d failed. A scream tore loose from Holly’s throat, summoning the life force back, but Bette wouldn’t move. The glow wasn’t strong enough to bring her back from the dead.

But, unlike Holly’s, Bette’s powers still worked, even after death. Her skin began to crawl with violet light, Holly and Barry glancing up at each other in realization that the human bomb had run out of time. When Holly couldn’t form words, Barry said, “Guys, we have a problem.”

“Is Bette okay?” Cisco asked eagerly, and Holly closed her eyes, staring down at the body of the woman she’d befriended.

Barry swallowed hard. “No. She’s dead.” He hesitated, glancing down at the girl in blue. “Eiling killed her.”

Holly looked up in surprise, but Barry simply nodded ever-so-slightly, a silent  _ it’s okay. _ She wasn’t sure he was right, but the gesture almost made her feel better. She noted Cisco’s silence and wondered if maybe she should make another exception and hug him later.

“She’s glowing. She’s gonna detonate,” Barry went on hurriedly.

Caitlin leaned back in shock. “Oh my god. A mass that size… the explosion… it would be--”

“Devastating,” Wells finished, Holly flinching as his voice echoed in her comms. “Barry, you have to get her away from the city.”

“But there’s no time--” he muttered, looking all around. They were smack in the middle of Central City with no way out from where they stood. Bette began to shine even brighter.

Holly’s eyes focused on the waves, gently lapping at the well-worn stones of the beach, and an idea began to bloom in her mind. But words had failed her, voice drying with the scream she’d emitted when Bette had gone still at her touch. She looked up at Barry instead of speaking, and he looked over instinctively to meet her eyes. “What?”

She exhaled wordlessly, still falling silent, but raised a shaky hand toward the horizon over the water. At first, Barry’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but then he understood, turning to face the waves. “Guys, can I run on water?”

At the silence, he went on. “I built up enough speed to run up a building, how fast do I need to go to run on water?”

Cisco murmured in the comms, doing the math, but Wells interrupted, “Approximately six hundred fifty miles per hour.”

“You have to outrun the blast or you’ll die too,” Caitlin reminded him anxiously.

He knelt by Holly, whose hands lay limp in her lap, Bette’s blood staining her fingers. Her eyes gazed out towards the setting sun, face made all the more striking by the light, and he thought he saw a lone tear cut through the dark paint on her eyes before she rubbed it away. Her hand left a smear of deep blue across her cheekbone.

“Go,” she whispered, voice shaking, gathering Bette’s body into her arms gently. Her long, red hair spilled over Holly’s shoulder, brilliantly vibrant against her blue suit, and Holly was careful not to disturb her as she let Barry take her.

He opened his mouth, but Holly held up a hand. “Don’t. I’m fine.”

Barry had learned enough about her by now to accept a lie before pushing her. For once, he didn’t speak. He held Bette’s lifeless form, her head lolling onto his shoulder, and stood slowly. He tried not to think too much about how he’d shared time with Bette and how she had died. He couldn’t afford to be weakened now, not with Holly fallen.

She looked up just as Barry turned and ran. In moments, he was nothing but a scarlet blur into the sunset, leaving a trail of mist as his feet pounded across the water’s surface. Her eyes followed him, almost absently, until the water thrust upwards with a bang.

Holly was on her feet, running towards the streak in the approaching waves, knee-deep in the water before she even knew what she was doing. Barry was hardly ahead of the huge wall of water, the one Caitlin said could kill him. The sun nearly blinded her, glaring until she could hardly tell man from water, but she squinted, hoping to god that massive wave hadn’t consumed him.

There he is. She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding as he suddenly zoomed closer to her, barely ahead of the shockwave, and dragged her back onto land with an arm around her waist. The two of them crashed onto the land with a huff and the water struck the shore at their ankles.

Holly scrambled upright beside Barry and squeezed his arm, her hand shielded from hurting him by his suit. “Are you okay?” She asked anxiously, eyes scanning him for any sign of injury.

He nodded, legs aching. “I’m fine,” he assured her.

Holly nodded, echoing him, and looked out at where Bette had gone out with a quite literal bang. The dark paint around her eyes was fading, cleaned by the spray of the waves. Now, Barry was sure; her eyes welled up with tears.

He stood slowly, staying close to his friend. “Hey,” he said quietly. Holly looked back up at him expectantly, and he offered a hand. “Let’s go home.”

She studied first the extended hand, then his face, taking a long moment to decide, before accepting the gesture. Her ungloved hand slipped into his covered one easily, and in her eyes, he thought he saw a shadow of a smile.


	13. going native

Holly and Ashton were best friends from the moment they met in med school, and they hadn’t drifted an inch ever since. Holly stood with Ashton as he began to accept that he liked girls  _ and  _ boys, terrifying even to a twenty-two-year old. Likewise, Ashton took care of Holly when she turned into a living death sentence.

But they didn’t really talk about that very much. Their friendship was anchored in better things, like Saturday night bowling and pizza, drinking games Holly always lost, and casual sex. The sex came at a pivotal point in their relationship, crushed in the weight of finals and stressed beyond belief. Having become close friends, Holly felt at ease suggesting being friends with benefits in their third day of exam cramming, and Ashton didn’t know how he got so lucky. Because, although his and Holly’s relationship was entirely platonic, he got all the advantages of dating the hottest girl in med school while also being free to hit on anyone he liked. And flirting was Ashton’s greatest, and most practiced, art.

“So, like, does bowling build a lot of arm muscle?” He asked innocently, leaning on his elbows on the counter’s edge. The unsuspecting guy working the shoe booth at Nina’s Strikes didn’t have the strength to form words in the face of Ashton’s charm, instead offering a halfhearted shrug.

Holly didn’t say anything, but she and Ashton had a running bet on who could feel up the dude’s substantial biceps first. She watched Ashton bat his eyes at him for a few more seconds, unsuccessfully trying to convince him to offer an arm like charming a snake from a basket. 

Fed up with the failure, Holly elbowed Ashton aside, cutting off his tale of saving a child’s life in the back of a pickup truck, and offered her most stunning smile. “Is that a tattoo I see?” She asked, voice high and lilting and hardly like her at all. She reached across the counter and grabbed shoe guy by the wrist, pulling him toward her and smacking a hand on his bicep with the Valkyrie’s strength. No tattoo, but Ashton’s glare was a sufficient reward.

“Damn,” shoe guy muttered. “You’ve got a vise grip, darlin’.”

Holly fluttered her eyelashes, enjoying the little persona she’d assumed. “I do a lot of karate,” she smiled, “you know, with shafts and stuff--”

“O-kay, Miss Congeniality, let’s get back to the game,” Ashton insisted, winking at shoe guy after prying Holly’s hand off him. Even walking away, she felt his eyes on her, and she flushed with pride.

“You owe me two slices,” she reminded Ashton, nudging him towards the food court.

He groaned, lingering near her. “It’s so far away though,” he moaned grievously.

Holly made a face, glancing from Ashton to the food court and analyzing the distance. “Ashton, it’s fifteen yards. Maybe.” 

He rolled his eyes, and Holly knew she’d won him over even before he said, “Fine, but just because I love you so much.”

As Ashton made his way toward the pizza counter, Holly returned to their table. It was the only bar table in the whole establishment with padded stools, and they’d been in so many times that they both swore the cushions had molded to the shapes of their butts. Holly hopped up onto her stool and pulled out her phone, tugging off one glove before tapping out a text to the new obstetrician Emily. She’d been drifting at Holly’s periphery for a week or so, and Holly was beginning to warm to her. At first, she’d been critical of her innocent looks and seemingly goody-two-shoes attitude, but Emily had proved to be a troublemaker in her own right.

Holly was about to reimagine the story of Emily’s surprise misbehavior when a familiar voice called, “Holly?”

She looked in the direction of the voice and saw none other than Barry Allen. Both in plainclothes and free from STAR Labs, one could hardly guess that only days previous they’d rescued the city from a human bomb.

“Barry, hi!” She greeted him, more cheerful than he’d ever seen her. She beckoned him towards the table she was sitting at, but he hesitated.

At her frown, he explained, “I’m actually here with Iris.”

Right, Iris. She’d heard enough about her to know what that meant. “Oh,” Holly said, nodding with intention. A grin began to grow on her face. “Hot date.”

“Not a date,” he said, too quickly. “Yeah. No. She doesn’t-- I don’t--”

“Shut up, Little Red Riding Hood,” she quipped, before her eyes widened and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she said, but her voice was somewhat muffled through her fingers.

Two could play at that game. Barry glanced both ways, ensuring that no one would hear him in the loud room, before countering, “No big deal, glowstick girl.”

She took her hand from her mouth, and she was smiling. It continued to stun him, the deer-in-the-headlights effect he experienced anytime Iris laughed at his jokes. Holly’s hair was in two braids now, only one glove on, and he couldn’t decide if she was more breathtaking while kicking asses or at ease.

“Barry!” A feminine voice cried from his right, and he immediately whirled on his heel. He knew that voice. Iris approached, clad in a green dress that accentuated her skin tone and gold jewelry that brightened her eyes.

Holly had to admit, Barry had good taste. If she weren’t clearly taken by the blond guy trailing behind her, Holly would be turning her gay-dar on. The blond guy was pretty, too. Holly barely managed to track the conversation as she tried to decide which member of the couple she wanted to make out with more if she got the chance.

Barry fumbled for a white cord, coiled impeccably, that he’d tucked in his right-hand pocket, and handed it to Iris without even glancing away from her face.

“Thank you so much,” Iris gushed, throwing her arms around Barry. His cheeks flushed a red as dark as his suit, but she hardly seemed to notice as she cupped his cheeks and said, “You are a lifesaver.”

“Tell me about it,” Holly mouthed off, then realized she’d spoken aloud. The eyes of the trio were on her. The pretty boy’s were… not on her face. She didn’t care. “Hi,” she went on, scrambling for an excuse. “I’m… um, friends. With Barry.”

“We met on a case,” he added clumsily.

“At the hospital.”

“A few weeks ago.”

Iris and Eddie looked suspicious, but Holly went rolling on before they had time to question her. “I just ran into Barry by accident, but… you don’t mind if I steal him, do you?” She asked, squeezing his shoulder playfully.

Less playfully when Barry opened his mouth. He didn’t protest.

“Um,” Iris said, clearly surprised and a bit impressed that a girl like Holly was so brazenly attached to Barry. “Sure. Thanks for bringing my charger, Barr. See you later.”

Holly pretended not to see Iris wink at Barry and mouth ‘ _ good luck’ _ as Holly turned him on his heel and led him to the table.

“What are you doing?” He asked through a forced smile. He glanced back toward Iris, but Holly squeezed his shoulder again.

“Don’t look back,” she commanded. “Amateur. Jesus, haven’t you played this game before?”

He made a face, still whispering like Iris could somehow hear him across the room full of people. “What game?”

“The jealousy game,” Holly explained. “It’ll make sense later, I promise. Follow my lead and pretend this is normal.”

He nearly flinched when she slipped an arm around his shoulder and started laughing, loud enough to cut through the crowd and draw attention. Heads turned, including Eddie’s and Iris’, and Barry had never seen that look on Iris’ face before. Holly plopped him down in the chair between her and Iris, giving her the perfect vantage point to gauge how into Barry the beautiful girl was.

“What are you doing?” He hissed, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder.

Holly smiled at him devilishly. “What you’ve been putting off for who knows how long.”

He realized that she meant inducing Iris’ jealousy, getting the girl, and immediately shook his head. “No. Me and Iris are never going to happen.”

Holly cocked an eyebrow. “Not like that you’re not.”

“Ahem?”

Ashton had arrived again, black-haired and striking, eyeing Barry like he was an intruder. Holly quickly defused him, though, and both boys could relax.

“It’s fine, Ash, he’s a friend. This is Barry,” she said evenly, gesturing for Ashton to sit.

He did, between the two already sitting. “Hey. I’m Ashton,” he introduced himself. “Good to meet you. I work with Holly.”

“Me too,” Barry admitted, before Holly turned her head with enough speed to send her braids flicking over her shoulders and he realized he’d spoken too soon. “I mean, one time she helped me. On a case.”

Ashton didn’t seem to completely believe that, but he rolled with it. “Okay. So, you’re a cop?”

“CSI,” Barry corrected him lightly. “We put together the pieces after crimes.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen TV shows,” Ashton jabbed, eliciting a giggle from Holly. After sharing in her sniggering, he continued. “But… do you know about our girl’s night job?” He asked conspiratorially.

Barry looked to Holly for permission, and she shrugged and nodded. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “Fighting evil and slaying monsters, et cetera.”

Ashton whooped loudly, drawing attention from the whole room, and Holly only found comfort in his slight decrease in volume when he crowed, “The Streak lives!”

“Shut the hell up!” Holly snapped, tugging at his arm.

Ashton was too busy celebrating to care. “See,  _ Barry _ , Holly told me that only two people in the world know she’s a superhero. Me and the Streak. So, given that you’re not a stunningly handsome ER nurse--”

Holly groaned loudly.

“-- that leaves the Streak. And you’re the right build to be him, and you and Holly should make babies,” he explained, taking a triumphant bite of Holly’s pizza.

“Ashton, I swear to god,” Holly muttered, burying her face in her hands to hide her reddened cheeks. 

Barry was no better off, but his confusion only worsened with Ashton’s comments. “Wait, but--” he looked to Holly, hoping she could read his mind, but she hadn’t raised her face from her hands. “I thought-- Aren’t you Sophia’s dad?”

Holly started cackling and Ashton choked on his food. The cacophony drew more attention, and Barry was afraid to look over his shoulder and see what Iris was thinking. Once Holly could breathe, she inhaled deeply and howled with a vengeance, not even caring a little about the patrons’ confused stares. 

“Sophia-- Sophia’s  _ dad _ ?!” Holly asked incredulously, her cheeks deep pink, eyes alight with a flame that drew him in. “Barry,” she began, pausing to snort a little more before composing herself, “do you think Sophia’s my kid?”

He didn’t want to lie to her, but he was blushing when he explained the truth. “Well, you mention her all the time and never explain who she is, so…”

“And we fuck a lot so you think she’s mine,” Ashton finished. “Honey, no. Holly likes herself some dick, but she’s got a figure to maintain. No kids are coming out of that.”

Barry didn’t know what he expected, but seeing Holly nod her approval at everything Aston said wasn’t it. “Oh,” he murmured. “Well, who is she?”

Holly smoothed her braids. “She’s my sister. Big age difference, I know, but I’m not even the oldest. I have two big brothers.”

“What?” Barry asked, trying to figure out how her parents managed to have consecutive children twenty years apart.

“My mom’s a boss ass bitch,” she explained, although that was completely unsuccessful in clarifying anything.

Holly’s eyes flicked over Barry’s shoulder, and without a moment’s hesitation, she smiled warmly, reaching forward to place a hand on top of his. Although the gesture wasn’t unwelcome, it was unwarranted, and it left Barry glancing to Ashton for an explanation. He offered none, and Barry remained confused until Holly, still smiling that brilliant smile, said, “Don’t look now, but your girl is watching us.”

He didn’t really want to look, not with Holly’s sparkling eyes on him. For a moment, he allowed himself to pretend this was real, and they were a couple, and Holly looked at him like this all the time. 

She glanced over again. “Okay,” she nodded, but didn’t remove her hand. “No, Barry, I’m not a mom. My sister has lived with me since our parents’ divorce got ugly. Both my brothers aren’t exactly the best caretakers, so she ended up here.”

“Oh,” he nodded, somewhat relieved. “So, you guys are… dating?” He guessed, but was once again wrong, based on the looks on Holly and Ashton’s faces. 

“Friends with benefits,” Holly explained, at the same time Ashton said, “Sexcapaders.”

“We’re not fucking calling it that,” she muttered, closing her eyes in irritation.

After the long-winded conversation about what the hell a sexcapader was, the trio automatically launched into a public-appropriate discussion of the superhero life. Barry felt fantastic, being drawn into Holly’s real world. The trio began to laugh enough that Barry almost forgot that Iris was in the distance behind him. Every few minutes, Holly would make her move, squeezing his hand, laughing too much at a dumb joke, or making eyes at him. She was such a flawless actress that he almost believed it himself, that they were something other than partners. 

After finishing her pizza, Holly winced and said, “Okay, boys, mama’s gotta pee.” She hurried off towards the restroom, leaving Ashton and Barry alone.

“So…” Barry led in, hoping Ashton would pick up the conversation.

Ashton, however, didn’t need to be cued. “Hey, Barry?” He said, his troublemaker smile mirroring Holly’s. Barry had to wonder who got it from whom.

“What?”

“I can tell you something that will fuck with your head and probably make Holly kill me,” he confided in him. “You ready?”

Barry rolled his eyes, sure that it wasn’t as important as Ashton assumed. “Sure.”

Ashton looked both ways before whispering, “You know how Holly’s been hardcore hitting on you for the past hour and a half?”

“It’s just a game she’s playing to get Iris’ attention,” he explained with a wave of his hand, dismissing Ashton’s gossip.

Ashton’s smile only grew. The wider it became, the more concerned Barry started to become. “Really?” He challenged, looking over Barry’s shoulder dramatically. “Because Iris left half an hour ago.”


End file.
